


The First Blast of the Trumpet

by spinstitcher (stygian)



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe – Sex And/Or Gender Changes, Angst, Bechdel Test Pass, Boffins - Freeform, Canon-Typical Violence, Enthusiastic Consent, F/F, Fem!Bofur - Freeform, Humour, Intersex Characters, Other, Queer Themes, Racebending, Trans Characters, Women Being Awesome, abandoned, butch!bilbo, canon character death (not the Durins), cross-dressing, fem in the sense of female-assigned-at-birth not actually femme, fem!Bilbo, non-BoFA-compliant, non-binary characters, unfinished work
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-22
Updated: 2013-10-23
Packaged: 2017-12-21 01:36:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 32,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/894253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stygian/pseuds/spinstitcher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Bilbo joins the Company of Thorin Oakenshield she figures that the only way she’ll be allowed on the adventure is if she pretends to be one of the lads - which won't be too difficult, since she already dresses like one. Armed with a sword, a pack of biscuits, and a cunningly placed pair of socks, she feels ready for anything that the quest might throw at her.</p><p>Only, as it happens, she’s not the only cross-dressing member of the Company.</p><p>Turns out dwarven women aren’t as rare as you'd think.</p><p>(Yes, it’s a Monstrous Regiment AU of The Hobbit - except with less cis people. No prior Pratchett knowledge necessary.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilery warnings at the end of the chapter. As always, if I have missed any tags or warnings, or if you feel that any aspect of my treatment of this subject is problematic, please do let me know. And if you enjoyed it, let me know that too! I love feedback more than I love pancakes (and I am _very_ fond of pancakes). This story is a mishmash of book and movie canon with some other things thrown in, so if you spot any discrepancies feel free to tell me but it’s probably deliberate. 
> 
> This should all be perfectly understandable without reading Pratchett’s _Monstrous Regiment_ , but I heartily recommend reading it anyway – it’s a wonderful, hilarious book, and it’s a standalone in the Discworld series so it’s fairly accessible.
> 
> There are a great deal of fabulous authors in this fandom who have written genderbending things and kinky things and things that would probably make Tolkien trip over his own feet – I am very grateful to all of you for being such an inspiration, and I hope you continue to make awesome art. Thanks also to the Dwarrow Scholar for such an amazing resource.
> 
> My tumblr is [here](http://www.spinstitcher.tumblr.com).

On the morning of Bilbo's ninth birthday, she is woken up very early by the scent of sausages, and she immediately throws off her bedcovers and rushes into the kitchen. Her father, bustling about the kitchen in a frilly apron and wielding a formidably sized spatula, bids her good morning and then asks if he may cuddle her. Bilbo graciously accepts, and is quickly swept up in a lovely snuggly hug that smells of tobacco and baking bread. As Bungo finishes cooking and toasting and stirring, Bilbo goes over to the window and climbs up onto the sill, so that she may look out of it and see if there is anybody coming up the path. She is so excited that she cannot bear to sit still even to eat - a rare thing for a hobbit. Today is a very special day, and she is all over jitters; it is not only her birthday, but it is also the day that she will meet her mother.

Belladonna Took is something of a legend in the Baggins household, and is widely regarded as a legendary nuisance in the rest of the Shire. Her infamy may doubtless be ascribed to her very unhobbitish love of adventures, such as the one that she has been occupied with for the last five years, aiding the Blacklock tribe in the Orocarni Mountains. She sends letters very frequently, and on her every birthday she is sure to send a gift or two for Bilbo and Bungo, but it isn't at all the same as seeing her in person. When last they parted Bilbo was far too young to remember much of her mother, and so she has hoarded the letters and gifts very carefully, so that she always remembers that she is loved. Bungo has done a fine job of raising her, Bilbo supposes, but her father is very Bagginsish, and not at all the sort to have adventures. With her mother around to join her Bilbo might finally be able to go properly exploring in the woods, and past the borders of the Shire. Perhaps she might even go so far as Bree! 

There are elves in Bree, she knows, because Lobelia Bracegirdle told her so. They only pass through every so often, usually on their way to the Grey Havens, and they rarely speak very much with strangers; but Bilbo can be very charming if she wants to be, and she is quite certain that she could coax a good story out of even the dourest of elven travellers. Bilbo would dearly love to meet an elf. She can read a smattering of Sindarin already, though she cannot speak it, since all her learning was done from the books in her father's study. Her aunts and uncles all tell Bilbo that she is a very precocious child, and they do not mean that as a compliment, but Bilbo cares very little for their opinions. She does what she likes, just like her mother.

At Bungo’s coaxing, Bilbo manages to eat a little porridge and honey, and then he helps her to get dressed. She allows this without the usual fuss, unwilling to risk missing a knock at the door just because she doesn’t like having to wear underthings. (They go _under_ your clothes, so nobody ever sees them anyway. Bilbo doesn’t see the point.) After she is dressed, in the simple tunic that most young fauntlings wear at her age, she returns to the window, clutching a little book of fairy-stories to keep her occupied. The book is one of her favourites, but today it fails to hold her attention. Every page or two she looks up to see if there is anyone coming. Occasionally she catches a glimpse of someone passing by, but it is only the neighbours wandering around, and none of them ever come past the gate.

Second breakfast comes and goes, and Bilbo manages to eat enough to make up for her paltry first breakfast. It doesn’t occur to her to worry that Belladonna will not show up. Bilbo’s mother is a hobbit of her word, because she takes care to only ever make promises that she knows she can keep. She will be here.

Her patience is rewarded: near midday there is a creak as the gate is thrown open, and a sturdy little figure in a long blue cloak begins to ascend the steps to Bag End. Bilbo throws her book down and runs to the front door, closely followed by her father.

Now that it has come to it, Bilbo finds that she is just as terrified as she is excited. Her heart is in her throat and she can’t seem to stop clenching and unclenching her hands.

There is a knock upon the door, finally, but Bungo is already partway through opening it, and then the person on the other end cries out his name and falls into his arms.

Suddenly shy, Bilbo remains behind the shelter of Bungo’s legs, clutching onto his apron-strings for comfort. She risks a peek, and sees that Bungo and the hobbit in the cloak are kissing fiercely, and that her father has started to cry. Bungo cries at everything, though – he cries when he stubs his toe, and when there is a happy ending in one of Bilbo’s fairy-stories, and when Bilbo runs away for an afternoon and gives him a shock – and she is familiar enough with the way her father’s breath hitches in his throat to know that these are happy tears, and not sad ones. As they continue to kiss, the hood of the hobbit’s cloak slips down, revealing a riot of dark hair.

The cloaked hobbit whispers something quiet into Bungo’s ear, and then she crouches down so that she and Bilbo are at eye-level.

“Hello, my darling,” says Bilbo’s mother.

Too curious to continue hiding, Bilbo steps out from behind her father’s legs, and inspects the new hobbit carefully. Belladonna has a bright smile on her face, but she doesn’t say another word, enduring the scrutiny patiently. Her ears are pointed, like Bilbo’s own. Her hair is black, and her skin is a little darker than her daughter’s; Bilbo thinks that she must take after her father in looks, since Bungo is quite a bit fairer. There is a long scar trailing down the left side of Belladonna’s face, starting just above her eyebrow, and over her left eye, and then ending below her cheekbone. The eyelid bisected by the scar droops a little, and the eye beneath it stares out, unseeing. There is another little scar just under her earlobe, and when she offers her hands in greeting there are fine scars all over them as well. Bilbo bypasses the hands entirely and throws her arms around her mother’s neck.

“Oh, my darling,” says Belladonna, over and over. “I missed you. How I missed you.”

At that Bungo starts to bawl in earnest, and he excuses himself in search of a handkerchief.

Belladonna and Bilbo stay hugging in the hallway for a while, and then Belladonna stands up and takes her daughter’s hand, leading her into the kitchen. It is time for elevenses, and in the pantry there are pumpkin scones with fresh butter and jam, and a big jug of orange juice. Belladonna leaves her cloak and travelling-things in the front hallway, and then she unstraps the sword from her hip and hangs it up over the mantelpiece, but apart from that she does not move to wash or unpack. She is dusty from travel and obviously tired, but she is also hungry, and eager to catch up with the child that has grown up in her absence.

Bilbo is overflowing with questions about Belladonna’s travels, and Belladonna is happy enough to answer them, though Bungo seems somewhat concerned that some of her stories might not be appropriate for young ears.

“You’ll give her _ideas_ ,” he says meaningfully, raising his eyebrows, but Belladonna only laughs.

“Good,” she says. “Isn’t that my job?”

Bungo grumbles under his breath for a while, but eventually subsides in the face of Bilbo’s enthusiasm.

“Did you really fight Wargs?” she asks excitedly, clambering up onto her mother’s lap and accidentally kneeing Belladonna in the stomach. “Did you see a dragon? Did you meet _elves_? Can you introduce me?”

Belladonna laughs, a deep belly laugh that has her shaking all over in mirth. “Yes, I fought Wargs – a whole pack of them – no, I have never seen a dragon, thank Eru, and yes, I have met elves, but only briefly. Maybe when you’re a little older we can go to Rivendell together, and I will introduce you to them then.”

“ _Bella_!” says Bungo, scandalised, but Belladonna only grins wickedly and pecks him on the cheek.

“You can’t keep her penned up forever, Bungo,” she says gently. “If she wants to travel, she will travel, and all we can do is supply the tools to aid her in her journeys.”

“I know,” says Bungo unhappily, “but does it have to happen so quickly?”

“They grow up fast,” says Belladonna. There is an old pain in her eyes, and she bends down to press a kiss to Bilbo’s curly head. Addressing her next words to her daughter, she says, “And _you_ have grown up faster than I could have dreamed! Why, it feels like only yesterday that I was watching you take your first steps across this very floor.”

Bilbo wriggles a little, distracted by the sudden serious turn of the conversation, and then she says, “Can you teach me how to sword-fight?”

Belladonna’s eyes light up in glee.

An hour later, to Bungo’s intense horror, and to the shock of all their surrounding neighbours, Belladonna and Bilbo may be found in the garden practicing defensive drills. Belladonna has fashioned a tiny wooden sword out of firewood for Bilbo, and for herself she is only using a walking-stick in place of her actual sword. Bilbo has pinned her tunic up above her knees so as not to restrict her range of motion, exposing her hated bloomers and causing more than one passing relative to faint clean away at the unseemliness of it all.

“All right,” says Belladonna, circling warily around her tiny opponent. “Watch my steps. Left, and forward – don’t cross your feet – and keep your knees bent, that’s it…”

Bilbo bites her lip in concentration, and follows the steps as instructed, glowing with pride when Belladonna praises her for it. They move from defensive drills onto attacking ones, and Belladonna teaches her daughter how to assess and then take advantage of an enemy’s weaknesses. Bilbo is a willing student, but even when she comes at her mother from her blind side she still cannot manage to catch her off-guard. Belladonna is too old and too wily for that.

They practice hard for the rest of the day, only stopping briefly when Bungo brings out a picnic lunch, skipping teatime entirely, and then stopping again for dinner. By the time supper rolls around they are both thoroughly exhausted and ready for bed. Bilbo’s parents tuck her into bed and then retire to their own bedroom, exchanging kisses and biscuits, and conversing in low tones well into the night.

The next morning at the crack of dawn Bilbo barges into their bedroom with all the subtlety of a rampaging oliphaunt, and wakes them both when she launches herself onto their bed, demanding more fighting lessons. Belladonna moans and grabs at her pillow, but is ultimately powerless against her daughter’s cunning charms. Bungo watches the proceedings with a jaundiced eye, seemingly resigned to the fact that he could never deny his spouse or his daughter anything – something which Bilbo, at least, is fully capable of taking advantage of.

“You’ve created a monster,” he says to Belladonna later, with a helpless little smile.

“ _We_ have created a monster, thank you – and a very fine one too,” she replies acerbically. “A finer little demon I have never seen. You are to be congratulated, dear one, for raising such a hellion.”

“I did nothing,” denies Bungo, “she takes after her mother.”

Belladonna raises an eyebrow at that. “I do not think it is only hereditary,” she says. “Surely upbringing has something to do with it too.”

“Perhaps,” allows Bungo, with a private grin, and they do not speak of it further.

They fall into a pattern of sorts. In the mornings Belladonna practices sword-fighting with her daughter, and they trade stories and wild imaginings. In the afternoons Bilbo stays inside with her father, helping him to bake or to cook that evening’s dinner. Sometimes during that time Belladonna will take off into Hobbiton and not be seen for hours, roaming the hills or exploring the markets, but she is always back by dinnertime. They spend the evenings together, all three of them cuddled up by the hearth, and gradually it stops feeling strange and starts to feel perfectly ordinary.

Over time, the neighbours stop whispering, or at least they are quieter about it. Belladonna does not leave on any significant trip until two years later, and even then it is only for two weeks, to see to some business in Bree with an old travelling companion of hers. During the next decade Belladonna rarely leaves for more than a month at a time, and occasionally on the more placid trips she will even take Bilbo with her. The neighbours do not like this at all, of course – Bilbo has taken to wearing breeches rather than petticoats, and she speaks Sindarin quite fluently, and Quenya too, though it is little more than a scholarly language now. She knows a smattering of Númenórean as well, and if she could find a teacher she would surely have learnt Khuzdul and the Black Speech of Mordor. These are not at all seemly pursuits for a young lady of the Shire, but Bilbo doesn’t give two figs for the opinions of the town gossipmongers, so it all works out all right in the end.

When her mother allows Bilbo to tag along on her travels, they do not go very far; only to Frogmorton and Tuckborough, and sometimes walking around the woods over the hill and across the water. Very rarely they will even go to Bree, and Bilbo will be transported with delight, rushing about the market-stalls and getting under the feet of all the Big Folk. She has not yet met an elf, but she knows that it is only a matter of time.

As much as she loves adventuring, Bilbo does not resent the time that she spends at Bag End. She loves her books and her maps, and she loves the precious time in the kitchen that she spends with her father. Sometimes it is exhausting, being around so many people at once, and Bilbo appreciates the time spent alone to recharge.

Bungo Baggins built Bag End with his own hands, as a wedding present for his wild-hearted spouse, and Bilbo begins to think that he had done so to ensure that no matter how far Belladonna wandered, she would always have a home to come back to. And, truly, these days Belladonna’s adventures are much quieter than they used to be, though her love of travelling has not dimmed. It is more that she has thicker ties to bind her to home, now. She has duties and responsibilities that she will not buck. She and Bungo do not always see eye-to-eye when it comes to Bilbo’s upbringing, but they learn to compromise.

And then the Fell Winter happens.

It begins innocently enough. The winter is colder than most, but not so cold as to be truly worrying – at least not at first. Gradually the winter grows colder and colder, and the food grows scarcer and scarcer, until even the hobbits of the Shire, with their fertile fields and enormous pantries, begin to run dry of resources. Those in Bree-land do not fare much better, and they find themselves having to send off as far as the dwarven kingdom of Ered Luin for trade. The food they receive in return is bland and uninteresting fare, but it is enough to live on.

When the Brandywine river freezes over, that is when the _real_ troubles start.

For as long as anybody who lives in the Shire can remember, the Brandywine river has been the best defence against the foul creatures that dwell north-east of Bree-land, near the Ettenmoors and Mount Gundabad. Even without that border, though, the Shire and its neighbours do not usually have much to fear from that direction; and yet the fierce winter has driven the wolves and the orcs further afield in search of food and shelter. The white wolves from the frozen wastes of the North have also ventured further south than they would usually dare, whole packs of them roaming the countryside and plaguing the scattered communities of hobbits and humans.

Awful rumours begin to trickle south, of babes snatched up from their beds, and whole towns put to the torch, and yet still the hobbits of the Shire do not seem to fully grasp the severity of their situation. The incredible cruelty of those tales seems like something out of a fairy-story – in real life, surely, no thinking creature could commit such atrocities against a people who have done them no harm.

Bilbo, who has familiarised herself with the histories of Middle Earth, knows differently. She is sceptical of the tales that say that orcs or wolves are intrinsically evil, or bad from birth. There is no such thing as a thinking creature that is inherently terrible, even though some of the stories say that the orcs were created with a dark purpose in mind. Still – there are many things that a thinking creature who is not intrinsically bad will still be driven to out of desperation. The winter is harsh, and the orcs are hungry. Bilbo has read the tales of the war against Sauron, and of the Battle of Dimrill Dale. She knows what is coming for them.

Still the hobbits of the Shire are oblivious to the danger. Some of the wiser of them begin to board up their windows and barricade their hobbit-holes, but most of the Shire folk carry on as if everything is as normal, albeit a bit colder than it usually is. The terrible rumours come closer and closer, stories of caravans attacked on the road, and families attacked in their homes.

Two months into the coldest winter in Shire history, the wolves finally cross into Hobbiton, and Waymeet, and Michel Delving. At first they strike at night, hiding behind shadow and rumour, so that their prey will be taken unawares; and then they become bolder, attacking during the day. The hobbits stay in their homes, frightened, and the post is no longer being collected, so it is difficult to get word out, and nobody knows what is going on.

Three days later Bungo leaves for the market and doesn’t come back.

Belladonna tucks Bilbo into bed in the cellar that night, with a little lantern beside her, and some heavy barrels to roll in front of the doorway should the need arise. After Bilbo is settled, Belladonna kisses her on the forehead, straps on her sword, and leaves in search of her husband.

She does not find him.

Something inside Bilbo knows that it is already too late.

The food traded from Ered Luin is running low again, since the bounders in charge of transporting it have been drawn away to guard the borders of the Shire. Belladonna packs all of the food that they have left, and she fills up several water-skins, and a bag for each of them.

“Be brave, my love,” whispers Belladonna, stroking her daughter’s hair, and giving her a set of little daggers to hide on her body. The daggers will not be much use against wolves and orcs. They are too little, and by the time the enemy is close enough to stab it will already be too late. Bilbo could throw them from a distance if she was really in trouble, but then she would have lost her weapon. She is a fair hand with a sword now, but she does not have a lovely shining blade such as Belladonna’s; she only has her wooden training-sword. She is not even a tween yet, and Bungo had put his foot down at the thought of his young daughter owning a sword of her own that she might hurt herself with. Bilbo curses that oversight, now, and keeps her wooden sword with her anyway, for luck more than anything else.

They leave the next morning, very early, so that they will have as much daylight as possible to travel in. Belladonna wakes her daughter when it is still dark, and they eat in silence, spellbound by a grief that neither of them can bear to name.

Outside everything is pale and ethereal, and there is not a soul to be seen in the streets. The sky is grey, and snow drifts down lazily at first, and then more steadily, so that it is difficult to see anything through the blizzard. Bilbo is scarcely aware of where they are anymore. Their surroundings look so alien that she can hardly tell one hobbit-hole from another, and of course all the signs are snowed over. Belladonna has her compass, though, and they move quickly enough that they reach Frogmorton by mid-afternoon.

When they knock on the door, nobody answers at first. Bilbo is briefly worried that they are not here – that they have fled – that they have been killed – and then there are footsteps rushing to the door, and it swings open to reveal her Uncle Longo.

“Come in,” he says at once, and they stumble into the warmth of the smial, stamping their feet on the floor to remove the caked snow. Longo leaves the door open for a moment, staring out of it as if he expects someone else to show up out of the blizzard, and then he turns to Belladonna and asks, “Bungo?”

She shakes her head. Longo’s face tightens, and he looks away for a moment, and then he shuts the door and ushers them into the kitchen.

The kitchen is packed. Uncle Longo’s wife Camellia is sat by the stove-fire, nursing baby Otho, who is only a year old and far too small for his size. Beside her are Primrose and Blanco Bracegirdle, and their son Bruno, and their daughter Lobelia. Bilbo rushes at once to Lobelia’s side, and they embrace rather tearfully. Bilbo has many cousins, but for some reason it has always been Lobelia that she is closest to, Lobelia who is not related to her at all. Perhaps it is that they are both outcasts of a sort – Bilbo is too strange, too fascinated by the things outside of the Shire, and Lobelia is too outspoken, too unwilling to be trodden on.

“I can’t stay long,” says Belladonna in an undertone, speaking quickly and quietly to Longo in the doorway. “I need to travel to Buckland – why they haven’t sounded the Horn already I’ll never know, and if I am there I can get word to a friend who may be able to help. If all goes well I will be back in three days. Look after Bilbo for me.”

Longo nods, tightly, and looks down in an effort to conceal the tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. “Be safe,” he says roughly, and claps a hand on Belladonna’s shoulder.

“I’ll do my best,” she says, and then she pulls Bilbo aside, and kisses her cheeks.

“I don’t want you to go,” says Bilbo, half-mad with fear. “You’ll get hurt. What if you don’t come back?”

“Oh, my darling, I am sorry,” says Belladonna, cradling her daughter close. “Some things we cannot choose. If I could stay with you forever I would, but I must leave so that I can be sure you will be safe, or else we will all die here.”

“All right,” says Bilbo in a whisper. “Don’t – don’t take any unnecessary risks.”

Belladonna cracks a smile. “You sound like your father,” she says, some unknowable emotion in her eyes, and then she leaves, and Bilbo is left to sharpen her daggers in the kitchen with the children.

That night they are all woken up by a terrible noise, a horn-call that echoes off the distant mountains, a huge caterwauling that seems to shake the very foundations of the earth. “AWAKE! FEAR! FIRE! FOES! AWAKE!” it calls, and Bilbo shivers in her shared bed, clutching Lobelia and Bruno to her sides. Though the two of them have very dark skin, they are paler than usual, and Bilbo herself is positively ghostly.

Uncle Longo comes into their room to check on them, and when he sees how terrified they are he gives them a little smile, and offers them some dry biscuits to calm them down. “Your mother has sounded the Horn-call of Buckland,” he says, “to rouse the hobbits of Buckland and Bree-land to action. We sorely need the aid. Do not fear the noise.”

Still, they do not sleep again that night.

It is six days, not three, before Belladonna returns, and she comes bearing fantastic stories of incredible bravery, of the Rangers of the North who came to the aid of the Shire, and of Gandalf the Grey, a wizard of amazing strength who pitted himself against their foes. She speaks, too, of the hobbits of the garrisons of Buckland, and of the courageous Master of Buckland that led them all to victory, a hobbit named Mirabella Brandybuck. Better than stories, Belladonna comes bearing _food_ , bread and preserved meats provided by the Rangers, and with the hunger in their bellies sated the terrors of the past weeks seem much further behind them.

Bilbo and her mother stay in Frogmorton for the next several days, until they can be sure that all of the wolves have been driven off, and that it is safe to return to Hobbiton. When they do return, they are accompanied by a little procession of their neighbours, who had also fled from Hobbiton when the enemy started venturing closer.

They settle back into Bag End, and for the first time in months they have food, and firewood, and comfort, but Bilbo finds that she cannot relax even for a moment. She is constantly on edge, constantly clutching for her daggers, and at night she is plagued by nightmares that are so vivid she finds herself lost in them, unable to tell the difference between waking and dreaming.

A week after their return, the bounders find Bungo’s body, half-eaten and frozen in ice near the outer border of Hobbiton.

The nightmares worsen, after that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: character death (Bungo), children in dangerous situations (Bilbo).


	2. Chapter 2

Belladonna is not the same after Bungo’s death. She tries to hold herself together for her daughter, but her old spirit has been dealt a fearsome blow, and she is no longer anything like as bright or as cheery as she once was. Bilbo used to think that her mother was invincible, but Belladonna is a hobbit and not a goddess.

The following autumn, Belladonna accidentally smashes a set of crockery that had belonged to Bungo, and that he had been dearly fond of. Bilbo finds her mother sitting in the wreckage, clutching the fragments of a broken bowl, and sobbing like her heart is breaking all over again. There is blood on her hands, and Bilbo gently removes the crockery from her grasp, cleaning and bandaging the cuts on Belladonna’s hands. The next day Belladonna goes out and buys a set of antique West Farthing pottery, in the style that Bungo liked, and she sets it on the shelf with a firm mouth and a resolute heart.

Bilbo retreats into her books for a time, but she finds little solace there. She has always been content to keep her own company in the past, but these days she finds that if she is left alone for too long she is prone to getting lost inside her own head, swallowed up by a nameless sorrow. More frequently of late she finds herself seeking out Lobelia. It is easy to be with Lobelia, because she does not demand that Bilbo spill all the details of her grief, nor does she insist upon conversation. Sometimes they just walk around the paths of Hobbiton in silence, or they sit side by side smoking Old Toby on the bench in front of Bag End.

The gossips of the Shire are quick to forget the tremendous service that Belladonna Took had done for them, and they swiftly return to their old cruel pursuits. It is said that Belladonna is faithless, that she is nothing like a hobbit, that she will no doubt abandon her young daughter before the year is out and go roving off to who-knows-where. It is said that Bilbo has been ruined by her mother, that Belladonna’s wandering and unhobbitish traits were inherited by her daughter, that Bilbo is pretending to be a man, and that Bilbo is eccentric and thoughtless of tradition. It is also said that Lobelia is a frigid harpy, but that rumour doesn’t last for long, because Lobelia goes around and hits the responsible gossips with her umbrella.

Bilbo and her mother still practice sword-fighting every morning with renewed determination, though now Bilbo wields a sword procured in Bree from a visiting dwarven blacksmith. She names the sword Biter, and she carries it with her everywhere she goes. She can’t afford to take chances anymore.

There is no refuge in ignorance. Bungo had been determined to be a respectable hobbit, who never picked up a weapon in his life, and he had been killed regardless. Bilbo will not make the same mistake.

Seven years after the Fell Winter, on Midsummer’s Eve, Gandalf the Grey returns to the Shire bearing a cart full of stupendous fireworks. Belladonna is delighted to see her old friend, and she draws him away to have a private chat, while Bilbo and all her cousins lie under the Party Tree watching colours explode in the sky above them.

“My dear Belladonna,” says Gandalf, “it is so very good to see you.”

“And you also,” says Belladonna, mustering up a smile. “Where have you been these past years?”

“Oh, here and there,” says the wizard vaguely. He waves his hand, and a particularly enormous firework goes off in the shape of the white tree of Gondor. This draws admiring _oohs_ and _aahs_ from his audience, and Gandalf looks rather pleased with himself.

Belladonna lets out a low sigh. “I feel stifled here, Gandalf,” she murmurs, looking out at the field with all of its tents and adornments. “I feel like I can’t breathe.”

For a moment Gandalf looks very old and very sad. “I am, as ever, entirely at your service,” he says. “I will be travelling to Rivendell soon, if you wish to join me.”

“I am old,” says Belladonna reluctantly. “I’m not sure if I have the energy for another adventure.”

“Nonsense,” says the wizard. “I am far older than you. If you wish to have an adventure than you shall have one.”

A little bit of hope creeps into Belladonna’s expression, and she turns back to the Party Tree, where all the tweens and fauntlings are gathered in a great big cuddly pile of squealing joy. Outsider she may be, but for once Bilbo looks at home among her relatives. “I can’t leave Bilbo alone,” says Belladonna.

“Then bring her with you,” says Gandalf easily.

“It will be her decision,” insists the hobbit.

The subject does not come up again until that night, when Bilbo and Belladonna are smoking together before the hearth-fire. The flames crackle and spit, and Belladonna’s face is dark and drawn in the flickering light.

“Something is wrong,” says Bilbo, laying a hand on her mother’s. “What is it?”

“Nothing is _wrong_ , exactly,” says Belladonna. “I wanted to ask you something.”

“Ask, then.”

Belladonna is quiet for a moment. “You were such an excitable child,” she says. “Always running off into the woods looking for elves. Do you still wish to meet one?”

Bilbo freezes. “More than anything,” she says, hardly daring to breathe.

Something in her mother’s bearing relaxes a little. “Gandalf will be setting out for Rivendell in three days, and he says that you and I are welcome to join him on the road.” She holds up a hand, anticipating Bilbo’s interruption. “No – let me say this. It will not be a holiday, and it will not be easy. The road is still dangerous at this time of year, and you will have to do without the comforts of home. Think about it before you make your decision.”

“There is no decision to make,” Bilbo says, smiling properly for the first time in years. “I could never turn down such an opportunity. I will be honoured to join you, mother.”

They pack their things the next day and travel to Bree, purchasing a room for two nights at the Prancing Pony and waiting there for Gandalf to join them.

For some reason Bilbo almost feels more at home among the Big Folk than she does in the Shire with her own people. If she is to be an outsider, at least she is an outsider for something that she cannot help. The populace of Bree is a motley crowd, filled with dwarves and hobbits and humans alike, and though there are certainly tensions between the groups there is no real animosity, except perhaps between the dwarves and the elves. It is easier to be a hobbit among non-hobbits than it is to be a non-conforming hobbit among conforming hobbits.

In Bree nobody looks twice at Bilbo’s breeches, either because they assume that she is male or because they simply do not care. Nor does anyone comment upon the unseemly shortness of her hair, lopped off an inch or two beneath her earlobes, or upon the fact that she carries a sword where most hobbits are determinedly pacifist.

As much as Bilbo loves the Shire, she could get used to this sort of freedom.

Belladonna, too, seems to relax a little more here than in Hobbiton. She is less restrained in both speech and gesture, and she bestows her smiles more generously. When they take their midday meal Belladonna strikes up a hearty conversation with the innkeeper, followed by a rousing round of drinking ballads, and there is nobody whispering maliciously in the corner about how unbecoming her behaviour is.

One of the human barmaids lingers around their table for a while, shooting flirtatious glances in Bilbo’s direction, but Bilbo only blushes and fixes her eyes to her plate. The barmaid is very lovely, and Bilbo has no scruples about waiting for marriage or a long-term relationship, but the hobbit is young, and she does not feel quite ready to partake in bedsports. Perhaps after she reaches her majority she will feel that it is time, but until then she is perfectly happy to keep the company of her own hand.

Gandalf joins them a couple of days later, and helps them to acquire a couple of ponies from a local stable. They set off when the first birdsong of the morning begins to ring over the hills, just before the dawn. He and Belladonna chat comfortably as they ride, and occasionally one or both of them will attempt to draw Bilbo into the conversation as well, but for the most part Bilbo is content to travel in silence.

Riding a pony feels strange at first, but she quickly grows used to the sensation, and after the first few days she is not even bothered by saddle-sores. She suspects this is more due to Gandalf’s possibly-magical salve than to her own powers of adaptability. There must be _some_ advantages to travelling with a wizard.

To be honest Bilbo had been expecting the road to be harsher than it actually turns out to be. Their bed-rolls are not as comfortable as sleeping in an actual bed, and riding all day is rather tiring, but it is worth it for the knowledge of what awaits them at the other end of their journey. It is not even as if they have to cut down on their meals in order to travel, since Belladonna has brought with her a sizeable pack of travelling rations, mainly made up of an old Shire recipe for shipbiscuits. Shipbiscuits are hard, twice-baked biscuits designed especially for travelling, since they are long-lasting and particularly filling. From her studies Bilbo knows that other cultures have similar foodstuffs: dwarves have something they call _cram_ , brought over from Erebor and Dale; humans have hardtack; and elves have lembas bread.

Nothing especially horrid happens on their journey. They travel unmolested by orcs or bandits, and when they finally do reach Rivendell Bilbo feels rather invigorated. It feels good to get a proper taste of the world outside the Shire, where before she has had only brief sips.

Rivendell itself is… more than she could ever have imagined. She can barely find the words to describe its beauty, such is Rivendell’s majesty. Simply walking along its arching bridges and beneath its whispering trees gives her a sense of peace and tranquillity that is difficult to describe.

They are greeted at the gate by two willowy elves who introduce themselves as Elladan and Elrohir. Bilbo has to fight the urge to stare when she meets them – they are incredibly beautiful, with their brown skin and long eyelashes, and their long black hair with flowers woven into it. They seem to almost glow from within, and more than that, they are _friendly_ , quick to smile and to joke, and they are very welcoming of their weary visitors.

Bilbo is a little too shy to make conversation, but she answers readily enough when they speak to her directly.

“Are you hungry, _mellon_?” asks Elrohir, bending down a little so that she does not have to crane her neck to look at him. “I can take you to the kitchens while Elladan shows your mother to her rooms, if you like.”

It seems they are familiar with the appetites of hobbits – particularly of faunts – but Bilbo has more pressing things on her mind. “Actually,” she says hesitantly, “I would rather like to see your library. I am told the library of Rivendell is greater than any other.”

Elrohir beams. “I don’t know about greater than _any_ other – but it is certainly greater than any others I have seen,” he says, preening a little. Of course that begs the question of how widely Elrohir has travelled, but Bilbo does not wish to offend him, so she does not voice the thought. “Come – it is this way.”

Bilbo quickly whispers to her mother where it is that they are going, and then they peel away from the group, walking down a winding set of corridors until they finally reach a set of enormous gilded doors. Elrohir pushes them open with a flourish, and then steps aside with a fancy little bow. Bilbo steps into the room, and feels her eyes grow huge.

The ceiling of the library is terribly high, and the shelves seem to grow in organic patterns, as if they are alive, wending and winding their way about the walls and up to the ceiling. Here and there are slim wooden ladders, so that the highest shelves are still accessible. The tremendous size of it quite puts to shame the little public library in Bree, and it is a thousand times more magnificent than even Bungo’s rather proud collection.

Bilbo clears her throat. “I’m dreadfully sorry,” she says, “but there is a problem I had not anticipated.”

Elrohir looks worried. “Is it not to your liking?” he asks uncertainly.

“Oh, no, not at all,” Bilbo assures him. “It is only that I have wasted your time – I’m afraid I won’t be able to sleep in the room prepared for me. I’ll be sleeping in the library, you see. I don’t think there’s any way that you could drag me out of here.”

Elrohir’s mouth hangs open for a moment, and then he bursts into laughter, clutching at his sides. It is several minutes before Bilbo is able to calm him down, and even then there are tears in his eyes, and his breath hitches every so often. “Hobbits,” is all he will say, shaking his head. “I had forgotten how much I love hobbits.”

He is amenable enough to the suggestion, though, and in the end the elves put together a little pile of furs and blankets in an out-of-the-way corner, and Bilbo curls up with a selection of books and makes a sort of nest. When it comes to dinner-time, she is quite prepared to simply make use of her stock of shipbiscuits, but instead the elves actually bring food to her in the library, with the condition that she will be careful not to get crumbs on the books.

Crumbs on the books. Honestly. Who do they think she is?

As it turns out Bilbo doesn’t see her mother or Gandalf again for three or four days, so engrossed is she in the wonders of the library. Eventually Belladonna comes to the library herself, and eats lunch with her daughter surrounded by the book-nest, firmly ignoring the occasional snickers of passing elves. (It is not that the elves are mocking Bilbo, she has found; it is only that they think she is very sweet, and they have a tendency to express all of their joyful feelings with laughter. It is a little confusing at first, but after a while she finds it endearing.)

Belladonna seems lighter, somehow, as if being in the valley of Imladris has allowed something rotten in her core to finally heal over. Bilbo finds herself enjoying their little talks more than she ever has before. Now that Belladonna is no longer quite so lost in her grief, she has quite a wicked sense of humour, and her lewd suggestions about elvish customs soon have Bilbo pressing her face into her hands and muffling her chuckles every time someone walks by. It is strange, speaking with her mother as if they are equals, rather than a mother and child, but Bilbo finds she rather likes it. There is a whole new side to Belladonna that she is only now discovering.

Occasionally Elladan and Elrohir will visit Bilbo in the library, and tell her stories that are not written down in books, about their little brother Arwen who lives in Lothlórien with their grandmother, and about the mischief they get up to when Lord Elrond is not around to scold them. They use the stories to teach her spoken Sindarin, and Bilbo knows the theory so well that she latches onto the practical side of the language very quickly. Occasionally Bilbo can even be drawn away from the books for long enough to practice her sword-fighting, and though the twins favour the bow they still have many useful insights into the art of the sword, and their counsel is invaluable.

When Bilbo and her mother finally leave Rivendell, it is with not a little amount of reluctance; but it has been two years, and they both know that it is time. As enchanting as Rivendell is, it is not _home_. Their hearts belong to the Shire, and besides, it is almost Bilbo’s majority, and she would like to be back in the Shire and surrounded by her own people when she finally comes of age. Belladonna, too, fiercely misses Bag End and all of Bungo’s things, and though the elves are sad to see them go, they all accept that it must happen.

The journey home is a little more fraught than the journey to Rivendell was, since Gandalf has business to attend to in the east, and they say farewell to him before they go. Still, Belladonna is a seasoned traveller, and the roads are quiet this time of year. They reach Hobbiton without experiencing any undue peril.

Bag End has grown dusty and dark in their absence, and the first thing they do when they get home is to go around throwing open all the curtains. After that Belladonna attempts to clean up, but Bilbo is forced to take over from her, since Belladonna seems to treat tidying the same way she would a military campaign: that is, with great viciousness and without much of a care for property damage.

Before long there are curious relatives gathering at the gate, wondering where they have been and angling for an invitation to tea. Belladonna’s sole acknowledgement of their presence is to throw open the door, shout “NOBODY’S HOME!” and then slam it behind her and ignore them for the rest of the day. Naturally this doesn’t do much good for their reputation, but Bilbo is rather inclined to think that their reputation went out the window a long time ago.

At tea-time Lobelia Bracegirdle climbs in through the chimney and then waits in the kitchen, covered in soot, with her arms crossed over her chest, and a fearsome glare on her face. Bilbo nearly has a heart attack when she walks in to find Lobelia glowering at her, but she quickly pulls herself together enough to offer up a plate of freshly-baked scones and cream.

“You could have _told_ me you were leaving, you know,” grumbles Lobelia, accepting a scone when she thinks that Bilbo is not looking. “I might even have gone with you. Two years without a word! That is not how you should treat your friends.”

“I’m sorry,” says Bilbo, rather guiltily. In truth she hadn’t even thought about how Lobelia would take her absence. Their friendship is mostly built upon comfortable silence, and they are not much for talking about their feelings.

“So you should be,” sniffs Lobelia, but after that it seems that all is forgiven. They eat quietly, and after they are finished they go outside and spar together, Bilbo armed with Biter and Lobelia armed with her trusty umbrella. Lobelia is delighted by the new tricks that Bilbo had learnt from the elves, and she even shares a few of her own new techniques in return, that she had learnt from passing Rangers in Bree.

Bilbo increasingly gets the impression that Lobelia was very lonely in her absence. Apart from Bilbo herself, it seems that Lobelia doesn’t really have any friends; even her brother Bruno is rather disapproving of her rowdy behaviour. There is a strict code of conduct for hobbits of the Shire, even moreso for _lady_ hobbits, and neither Bilbo nor Lobelia fit that mould.

The stares and whispers from Bilbo’s neighbours have increased mightily, but she finds that it doesn’t bother her so much anymore. Most of the inhabitants of Hobbiton have never even crossed the Brandywine, and they cannot know what lies beyond the borders of the Shire. They have been raised to believe certain things, and to behave in a certain way, and they have never thought to step outside for long enough to think of alternate ways of belief or behaviour. Bilbo can’t really blame them for that, but she finds herself hoping that the next generation of hobbits will be a little more adventurous, and a little more open-minded, or at least a little more kind.

Bilbo reaches the age of thirty-three with a very small amount of fuss. The party is fun, and she puts quite a bit of thought into the presents that she gives to her relatives. Most of them seem faintly embarrassed when they receive them, since very few of them include Bilbo in their gifting number on their own birthdays. Bilbo gives Lobelia a fine set of throwing daggers that she had commissioned especially from a blacksmith in Ered Luin. Lobelia refuses to admit that she is pleased with the gift, but Bilbo catches her later in the evening stroking the daggers with a soft look in her eye, and knows that she is happy.

For her mother, Bilbo paints a set of matching portraits of Belladonna and Bungo, that they later hang up on top of the mantelpiece.

Gandalf does not arrive in time for the party, but Bilbo did not really expect him to do so. Gandalf is like a cat: he comes and goes as he pleases, and he is wildly unpredictable, though affectionate enough when it suits him.

Some weeks after Bilbo’s birthday, she and Lobelia cook a number of meals in advance and put them in the ice-box for Bilbo’s mother, and then they pack a couple of travel bags and hightail it to Bree. Lobelia has been to Bree several times, though not as often as Bilbo, and she has never been beyond it. They plan to stay at the Prancing Pony for a few nights and then camp in the Chetwood for a time, hunting for game and fishing in the streams.

The atmosphere of the tavern is bright and lively, and the food and ale are very filling. They are used to hobbit visitors in Bree-land, and so there is a little hobbit-sized table set aside in the corner for them. The human barmaid that had flirted with Bilbo last time is still here, and her affections have not waned, if her lingering glances are any indication.

Apparently Bilbo returns those lingering glances a little too often, because Lobelia follows her gaze and snorts. “I don’t mind, you know,” she says. “I can get a separate room if you’ll be… otherwise occupied. Go and talk to her.”

Bilbo flushes. “I can’t do that, this is her workplace,” she says, shaking her head. “It’s her job to be nice, and if I make her uncomfortable she won’t be able to go anywhere else, and she’ll still have to be nice to me.”

Lobelia sucks on her teeth. “Fair enough,” she says. “But I think that only counts when you’re the one initiating the contact. Look alive.”

Bilbo turns to find that the barmaid is approaching, and she squeaks and drops her head quickly. It is in vain, because in the next moment she feels a weight settle onto the bench beside her, and when she turns her head the barmaid is sitting right there next to her.

“I am Natsuki,” says the human, with a little nod. “My shift has ended, and I would like to share your bed tonight. Or tomorrow. Whenever you like. Are you interested?”

“Well, that’s… certainly to the point,” says Bilbo faintly, while Lobelia snickers into her hands. “I, ah… I’m Bilbo. And… that sounds very nice.”

Natsuki grins. “Would you like to finish dinner first, or go now?”

“Now is fine,” mumbles Bilbo, blushing fiercely, and then Natsuki stands up and takes her hand, and they both go up to the room that Bilbo and Lobelia had rented for the night.

The beds are human-sized, and of course so is Natsuki, so when Bilbo climbs up onto the bed she feels like she is drowning in skin and silken sheets. Natsuki’s body is long and narrow, quite unlike a hobbit’s, but very nice regardless.

“What would you like to do?” asks Natsuki, cocking her head like a bird.

Bilbo gnaws on her lip, and finds that with all of that beautiful body spread out in front of her, the nervousness and embarrassment have quite left her. “I don’t really know,” she says. “I haven’t done this before. What do you like?”

Natsuki grins, and shows her, guiding Bilbo’s hand to where she wants it. As it turns out, Bilbo likes this very much indeed, and she takes a great deal of pleasure in drawing cut-off gasps and little breathy moans from Natsuki’s lips.

After that Bilbo expects that Natsuki will do the same in return, but instead the human begins to press little fluttering kisses to Bilbo’s body, lingering over her pudgy belly and moving steadily downwards. She pauses with her lips pressed to the crease of Bilbo’s hip, and asks, “Is this okay?”

“Yes,” says Bilbo immediately. “Yes, it’s very okay. Jolly good, in fact. Oh – _yes_ –”

The sounds she makes after that are very loud and incoherent, and she can feel Natsuki’s smile pressed against her skin.

The next morning there are bags under Bilbo’s eyes, and love-bites on her neck, and a dazed smile on her lips. Lobelia won’t stop smirking, but Bilbo is too blissed-out to care. Besides – Lobelia’s skin is too dark to have love-bites show up on it, but Bilbo hears from a good source that her friend did not spend the night alone either, so she is a hypocrite to laugh at Bilbo.

Well. She gets the impression that Lobelia is not amused at Bilbo having engaged in bedsports, but rather that Bilbo is acting so love-silly the morning after. But the principle stands.

Natsuki takes Bilbo and Lobelia out to lunch that day, and then they wander around the market, munching on pieces of honeycomb and pointing out particularly interesting wares. Bilbo always enjoys her time in Bree. More than anywhere else that she has been, it is very accepting of travellers, and the people who live here are such a mish-mash of peoples and cultures that nobody is very bothered by the things that would be a whole month’s worth of gossip in the Shire.

Bilbo spends the night with Natsuki again, and then the next night also, and then she and Lobelia move on towards the Chetwood. Bilbo is very fond of Natsuki, but she is not terribly sad to part with her; the thing between them was very easy and casual, and neither of them were interested in making long-lasting promises. They have each other’s postal addresses if they wish to keep in touch, but Bilbo has a feeling that won’t happen, though she wouldn’t be adverse to it if it did.

Camping with Lobelia is great fun, and it’s good to get away from everything for a while. The Chetwood is very peaceful, and the way that the light filters down through the canopy makes it feel like they are swimming through a green-and-gold ocean. The only downside to having Lobelia for company is that she is totally hopeless at hunting – at one point she scares off a deer by charging at it and roaring, with her umbrella held aloft like a sword. Bilbo nearly falls over, she is laughing so hard, and Lobelia gets very offended and refuses to speak to her for the rest of the day.

After that Lobelia is relegated to fishing, which she can’t muck up too badly, and Bilbo takes over the hunting side of things. She catches several rabbits in her snares, and manages to kill a few fat pheasants with a makeshift slingshot.

They return to the Shire in much better spirits, talking and laughing together, and with some extra money from having sold the rabbit-skins in Bree. That camping trip becomes the first of many, and every few months they pack up and go wandering, occasionally accompanied by Belladonna as well.

Now that Bilbo can look after herself, Belladonna takes to travelling on her own a little more often. She is never away too long, and the trips seem to do her good; but every time she returns she is a little less refreshed, a little more wan, and she complains often about the tiredness in her bones.

When Bilbo is thirty-nine, Belladonna finally stops travelling for good.

When Bilbo is forty-two, her mother falls terribly ill. The Shire doctor visits, and recommends bed-rest, and to make Belladonna as comfortable as possible. Bilbo sits at her mother’s bedside, and reads her stories, and cooks heartening soups for her, and reads through all of the medical textbooks that she can get her hands on. None of it helps. The sickness rages through her in mere days, leaving her limp and lethargic, and one morning she just doesn’t wake up again.

Her mother’s death hits Bilbo very hard, perhaps even harder than the death of her father. She is truly alone in the world, now, with her parents gone, and without any siblings to keep her company. She has a great number of uncles and aunts and cousins, but none of them are particularly sad to see Belladonna go, and their presence is no comfort.

Gandalf does not attend the funeral. Bilbo isn’t angry at him for it. It isn’t as if her mother is still around to mind.

In the years following, Bilbo ranges further and further from the Shire, travelling for longer periods every time. Living in Bag End is bittersweet, now; she is surrounded by memories of her parents, and that is just as stifling as it is soothing. Lobelia accompanies her on some of her trips, but she is often distracted by her courtship to Bilbo’s cousin Otho. (They are a strange match – Lobelia is so loud, and Otho is so quiet – but they seem to balance each other out well enough.)

When Gandalf finally does visit again, he is very lucky that he manages to happen upon the Shire during one of Bilbo’s rare home visits, though when it comes to wizards it seems that luck has very little to do with it.

Bilbo is sitting on her front bench, wearing her favourite waistcoat, and puffing away at a pipe full of Longbottom Leaf. A shadow falls over her, and she opens her eyes to see Gandalf as familiar as ever with his patchy robes and battered staff.

“Good morning,” she says, and the wizard smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: canon character death (Belladonna).
> 
> Elvish:   
> _mellon_ \- friend


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings at the end of the chapter.

“It’s good to see you again,” Bilbo offers.

Gandalf looks pleased. “You remember me!” he says, eyebrows up somewhere around his hairline.

Bilbo laughs. “It hasn’t been _that_ long,” she says. “What brings you to the Shire?”

“I am looking for someone to share in an adventure,” says the wizard, as if he is imparting a great secret.

Bilbo’s heart leaps, but she is careful not to let anything show in her expression. “What kind of adventure?” she asks first.

Gandalf gives her a hard look, as if she has done something unexpected. “Oh,” he says, “a very noble sort of adventure, I should think.”

That is not an answer at all. Bilbo’s eyes narrow. “And where are you going?”

“Far to the east of here,” he says, “to the dwarven kingdom of Erebor. The Lonely Mountain.”

“The one that has a dragon in it,” she says, frowning at him.

“Well,” says Gandalf, rather nonplussed. “Yes.”

Bilbo has met elves, and humans, and hobbits aplenty. She has met dwarves, but she has never had a proper conversation with one, and most of what she knows about their culture is from books. They are a secretive sort, and so there is not much written about them, especially not about Erebor, which was abandoned long ago.

“All right then,” she says, and stands up.

“Now, Bilbo, don’t be too hasty – it will be very good for you, and…” and then he trails off, finally seeming to register what it was that Bilbo had actually said.

She grins at him. “I expect you’ll want a burglar. Someone light on their feet. Someone like a hobbit, perhaps?”

“Indeed,” says the wizard, looking somewhat taken aback. “I must say, you are taking this very well. I shall inform the others.”

“Inform the… who?” Bilbo reaches out and snatches his sleeve, before he has the chance to move away. “What others?”

“Why, our Company, of course,” he says. “They’ll be coming to supper tonight, so that you may all be acquainted with each other.”

“Supper? Gandalf! Were you going to go off and leave me unprepared?” demands Bilbo, and from the suddenly shifty look in his eyes she knows that she’s hit the nail on the head. “Dwarves! Coming to supper! I haven’t got nearly enough food in the pantry for that. I will have to go to market. How many are coming?”

Gandalf looks rather like a cornered animal. “Only a few,” he says.

“A few?”

“All right, several.”

“ _Several_?”

“Thirteen!” he says finally, and Bilbo buries her face in her hands. Thirteen dwarves! If their appetites are anything like a hobbit’s, she won’t even be able to _carry_ all the food she will need.

“Right then,” she says determinedly. “That settles it. You’re coming to the market with me.” And with that she opens the gate, and begins to march down the road.

“Wait!” says Gandalf. She turns to face him suspiciously. “I need to put up a sign, to let them know which hobbit-hole to meet in.”

“A sign?” says Bilbo, and narrows her eyes.

Gandalf’s gaze darts toward her door, and Bilbo gasps in outrage.

“Oh no you don’t!” she says, reaching for his sleeve again. “That door was painted a week ago!”

She is too slow, though, and Gandalf too wily; he darts out of her grasp and dashes nimbly up to the door, scratching a mark into the paint before she can get another word in. He turns, then, to see Bilbo glaring at him very ferociously. The blasted wizard doesn’t show the slightest amount of guilt, though, and he loops his elbow through hers, and begins to stroll down the road.

“To the market, then?” he says innocently. Bilbo glares at him some more, but it doesn’t seem to do any good. The wizard is totally shameless.

There are a few unkind whispers when they reach the market, but Gandalf is well-liked enough that they die down quickly. Still, Bilbo rushes through the shopping as quickly as she can manage, pushing blocks of cheese and loaves of bread into Gandalf’s arms, and spending as little time as possible speaking to each market vendor.

Gandalf seems oblivious to the nasty things that people say behind Bilbo’s back, but he also seems to manage to shoot penetrating looks at the worst perpetrators quite by accident. Usually this makes them flush and drop their eyes, but not everyone is intimidated by the wizard.

One of the stallholders keeps up a constant stream of muttered insults all the way through the transaction. Bilbo tries valiantly to ignore him, but it doesn’t seem to do any good – and then suddenly the insults cut off with a yelp. Bilbo turns, and finds Lobelia with her umbrella outstretched, obviously having just whacked the offending hobbit in the back of the head.

“Hello, Bilbo!” says Lobelia happily, and looks to Gandalf. “Are you going on another adventure, then?”

“Yes,” says Bilbo, and then something strikes her. “Actually, I have something I need to speak to you about.”

“We can walk and talk about it,” says Lobelia, gracefully manoeuvring a couple of large pumpkins out of Gandalf’s arms and into her own. “What’s all this food for?”

“Dwarves coming to supper,” says Bilbo succinctly.

Lobelia snorts. “Now _that_ I’d like to see. Would you like help cooking?”

“Yes, please,” says Bilbo, rather warmed by the suggestion.

It takes all three of them to carry all the food back to Bag End, and then Lobelia and Bilbo set to work, cooking up broiled beef stew and roasted pork, pastries and cakes, and meat pies. From what Bilbo has heard, dwarves aren’t much for vegetables, but she deep-fries some sweet potato chips and mashes up the pumpkin for soup anyway, just in case.

There are barrels of ale and cider in the cellar, but she’d like to have something non-alcoholic set aside just in case. From what she’s heard about dwarves, that shouldn’t be a problem, but she’d be a poor host if she didn’t prepare for every eventuality. There’s at least a jug of non-fermented apple juice, and of course there’s plenty of water, and that should do for now.

She also sets about making as many shipbiscuits as she has the ingredients for. She’ll be needing them if they’re to make it all the way to Erebor – especially since she hears that dwarves only have three meals a day. Only three! It’s a wonder they’re all so sturdy.

She puts Gandalf to service stirring the shipbiscuit mix, ignoring his protests, and draws Lobelia away into another room.

“This adventure that I’m going on,” says Bilbo, and hesitates. “It looks like it’s going to take… a long time. And I might not come back from it. So I was hoping that you might look after Bag End for me, in my absence.”

“Me?” says Lobelia. There is something terribly vulnerable in her expression. She looks around, undisguised longing in her gaze, and Bilbo’s heart aches for her. Lobelia has always loved Bag End, and not just because it’s a grand smial. She has a lot of happy childhood memories from here, visiting to play with Bilbo under Bungo’s benevolent supervision. To Lobelia, Bag End was a castle, or a labyrinth, full of beautiful treasures and interesting hidey-holes, and she had never quite shaken that impression.

“I can’t think of anyone that I trust more,” says Bilbo softly. “And I’d hate to think of everything just… gathering dust.”

“I’d be honoured,” says Lobelia. Her eyes are very shiny, and she looks away and rubs her face on her sleeves, not very subtly.

Bilbo can’t hold back any longer, and she moves to embrace Lobelia, winding her fingers into her friend’s dark hair. Lobelia lets out a short sob into her neck, and after that she gathers herself, pushing Bilbo away but keeping her hands clasped on her shoulders.

“Don’t you dare die on that quest, do you hear me?” Lobelia says fiercely. “If you’re not back here for my wedding then I’ll march into the Underworld and drag you back here myself.”

“I can’t promise that I will come back,” says Bilbo. “But I promise that I will do my best to return unharmed.”

They return to the kitchen. Gandalf looks a little _too_ innocuous, and Bilbo is quite sure that he had been eavesdropping on their conversation, but she doesn’t say anything about it.

Bilbo takes the soup-pot off the stove, and tastes a spoonful, humming to herself. “Here,” she says, passing the spoon to Gandalf. “Try this.”

Gandalf gives the spoon a critical look, and then he glances back to Bilbo, and back to the spoon, until he finally sighs, knowing that he’s not getting out of it. His face is filled with far too much trepidation as he carefully sips from the proffered soup-spoon, and then after he has tasted it his expression is shocked and pleased.

“It’s good,” he says, sounding insultingly surprised.

Bilbo scowls at him. “I can cook,” she says defensively.

Gandalf grins at her. “Your mother couldn’t,” he points out, and Bilbo is startled into smiling at him in return. The thought of her mother no longer brings so much pain, and when Belladonna is brought up by Gandalf, her old friend, it just makes Bilbo feel happy and nostalgic.

She puts the soup-pot to one side and then she turns back to the shipbiscuit mix, and adds a little more flour, and begins to knead it into dough. The kneading is surprisingly therapeutic. The rough, regular motion allows her to stop thinking for a little while, and just sink herself into the task.

When the dough has been pummelled to her satisfaction, she spoons it into clumps and puts it on a baking tray, then swaps it with the tray already in the oven. She’ll need to bake each set at least twice – three or four times if she wants them to last _really_ long, but by that point they will be rock-hard, and besides, there’s not time enough in the day or space enough in the oven for all that baking.

Night falls far too quickly, and Bilbo still hasn’t finished setting the table when the doorbell rings out. She shoves a plate of fruit scones into Gandalf’s hands and goes to answer it.

She swallows a little when she opens the door, because the dwarf on the other side of it is just… is just… gorgeous. He is stout and thickly-muscled, with fine bushy eyebrows, and tattoos traced in intriguing patterns over his bald skull. He has a little more hair on his chin than most hobbits would like, but Bilbo finds herself wanting to run her fingers through it, and has to slap away the thought before she does something silly.

“Dwalin,” says Gorgeous. Er, the dwarf. “At your service.”

“Bilbo Baggins, at yours and your family’s,” she replies promptly, and ushers him inside. “Supper’s this way. You’ll have to help me set the table, I’m afraid I’m not quite finished.”

He looks a little surprised at that, and she has to wonder if he’s a noble, and unused to chores, or something of that ilk. Well, that’s just too bad – it’s her smial and her rules, and if he’s going to enjoy her hospitality he can bloody well help set it up.

“Here,” she says, “put these plates out – and help me move these chairs into the hall – _not_ those ones –”

Gorgeous – Dwalin – shoots a slightly desperate glance at Gandalf, but finds no sympathy there; the wizard is long-suffering of the ways of hobbits, and of the ways of Bilbo in particular. Somewhat cowed, the enormous dwarf obediently begins to follow Bilbo’s directions, looking more and more surprised as the table fills up even further with food. She and Lobelia had moved the table from the dining room, since there wasn’t really enough space in there for thirteen dwarves and a wizard.

“That’s quite the spread, laddie,” Dwalin grunts admiringly, once the table is so full it’s groaning.

Bilbo very carefully doesn’t react to the epithet. “This is just the first course,” she says dismissively, and then turns away, ignoring Dwalin’s look of open-mouthed shock. “Would you like a mug of ale?”

“Yes please,” says Dwalin weakly. Bilbo takes that opportunity to hightail it into the kitchen, drawing Gandalf aside. Lobelia takes one look at Bilbo’s expression and moves quickly into the hall to distract Dwalin with the plate of scones.

“He thinks I’m a man,” says Bilbo at once.

Gandalf looks at her, in her waistcoat and breeches, with her yellow ascot tied around her neck. “Yes, I imagine he does,” the wizard says thoughtfully. “Dwarves don’t spend much time with hobbits, you see.”

“Yes, but,” says Bilbo and stops. “But.” She stops again. “I’ve read about dwarves, and their women,” she says finally. “There aren’t many of them at all. Only a quarter of them are female. And – Gandalf – they’re not allowed to go out travelling at all, they have to stay and protect their homesteads.”

“That is true,” says Gandalf. “Though it isn’t the same as the women of human settlements. All dwarves are expected to know how to fight.”

“But not to _travel_ ,” says Bilbo, rather urgently. “Gandalf, they’ll never let me along if they know I’m a woman! No, there’s only one thing for it. I’ll have to pretend to be a man.”

“That is your decision,” says Gandalf, though he looks suspiciously twinkly-eyed as he says it. “Whatever you tell them, I will support you.”

Another ring of the doorbell interrupts them, and Bilbo swivels around, wild-eyed. Gandalf smiles at her, and she pushes her hair back from her face and goes to answer it.

The second dwarf is every bit as pretty as the first, though he is a little more grizzled, and his hair and beard are as white as snow. “Balin,” his name is, and he gives her a silly flourish of a bow. Bilbo likes him immediately. She introduces herself again, before stepping aside to let him in.

“Am I late?” he asks, suddenly serious, and Bilbo shakes her head.

“No, you’re only the second one here,” she says, and then Balin catches sight of Dwalin, and the two exchange witticisms and then stalk towards each other.

Lobelia lets out a little shriek when the two dwarves suddenly bash their skulls together, and Bilbo shows them both to a seat at the table, bringing a hefty mug of ale for each of them.

The door rings again.

Half-expecting another drop-dead beautiful sexpot, Bilbo has to admit she is a little disappointed when the two dwarves behind the door are _young_ more than anything else. They bow in tandem, and Bilbo has to stop herself from laughing in their faces, especially when the little scraggly one calls her _Mister Boggins_.

The blond one shoves his weapons into Bilbo’s hands, and Bilbo drops them right on the floor. Fili blushes a little and then picks them up himself, putting them in a careful out-of-the-way pile on the hall table.

“It’s nice, this place,” says the scraggly one – Kili. “Did you do it yourself?”

Bilbo smiles at him. “My father built it, as a wedding-present for my mother,” she says. “She used to travel a lot, and I suppose he wanted somewhere that she could always come back to.”

“Oh,” says Fili, looking around with a little more appreciation. “That’s… that’s really nice.” He doesn’t react to the suggestion of a woman travelling, but that doesn’t really mean anything, since it could just be that he’s trying to be polite.

Kili wipes his muddy boots on her mother’s glory box, and Bilbo has to prevent herself from giving him a swift kick to the shins. And then she has to wonder why it makes her so angry. Her mother’s things are far more precious to her now than they were to Belladonna when she was alive. Bilbo’s quite sure that her mother wouldn’t have given two hoots about getting mud on her belongings. Still – now that it’s all she has left to remember her by, there’s a kind of… sacredness about the glory box, about the crockery sets, about the hand-quilted blankets that her father used to make. Which is silly, really. A little mud can’t tarnish Bilbo’s memories.

Dwalin seizes Kili and presses him into service bringing another barrel of ale up from the cellar. Bilbo is about to return to the kitchen, but then Lobelia comes to say goodbye, and she gets distracted.

“I need to fetch some things from my place,” the other hobbit says, shrugging on her coat. “If you leave in the morning this will probably be the last time I see you. For now,” she adds quickly, unwilling to admit that it might be the very _last_ time.

“Oh – you’ll need a key,” says Bilbo, and goes to fetch the spare key from the drawer.

“Good luck,” says Lobelia quietly. “I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

She leaves, and Bilbo is left to slump against the wall, feeling rather emotionally drained.

And then the doorbell rings again, and a whole pile of wriggling dwarves falls out from behind it. And they are all _ridiculously_ beautiful. All – all bearded and bulky, and soft and hard by turns, with strange rounded ears and with their feet tantalisingly hidden beneath steep-capped boots. Bilbo has to stop and catch her breath for a moment. If she’s to be surrounded by this many beautiful people for the whole journey, she doesn’t know how she’s going to cope.

She is quickly disabused of that notion, because as it turns out the dwarves have absolutely atrocious table manners, which in her opinion quite outweighs their physical beauty. Still, even though they are vulgar, they are really rather sweet, and Bilbo finds herself rather charmed by their silly games and drinking-songs. Oin actually takes to using one of the teapots as a musical instrument. And then when they are finished the first course they even take it upon themselves to clean up, which she is grateful for even though they are very rude about it. Throwing around her mother’s pottery, and bouncing it off their knees and elbows! But none of it was harmed in the end, and then they all help to bring the next course to the table.

They all seem pleasantly shocked at the amount of food at their disposal, and Bilbo is very glad that she had gone to the market, or else it would have been a paltry dinner indeed. Bombur in particular has an appetite almost worthy of a hobbit. Bilbo has to wonder whether the three-meals-a-day thing is out of choice or necessity.

Bag End hasn’t survived the visit intact, really; the plumbing in the bathroom is all but destroyed, and there is mud all over the place, and not a few broken trinkets. Bilbo has to admit at feeling a certain amount of evil glee at the thought of saddling Lobelia with the clean-up.

Partway through the second course, the final member of their company finally deigns to join them. Apparently he’d got lost on the way – which doesn’t say anything promising about his ability to lead them halfway across Middle Earth.

Thorin is more condescending than all of the rest of the dwarves put together.

“Axe or sword, Mister Baggins?” asks the leader of their Company, with a baleful look in his eye, and Bilbo is hard-pressed not to glare right back at him.

“Sword,” she says shortly.

He doesn’t seem particularly impressed. “You look more like a grocer than a burglar,” he tells her, eyeing her pudgy form, and Bilbo finds herself flushing in anger. It’s not as if dwarves are even built that differently to hobbits – why, half of the Company is wider than Bilbo, and she knows from the weapons they carry that there must be a great deal of muscle lying under all that fat.

At least she gets to see the look of utter shock on Thorin’s face when he walks into the hall and sees all the food spread out on the table. And then Bilbo feels cruel for taking pleasure at his surprise. These dwarves have been exiled from their homeland for a long time, living rough, and finding work wherever they could, and it’s probably been a while since Thorin saw this much food in one place.

The king delivers a curt report on the meeting he had attended in Ered Luin, and then he pulls out a map, and Gandalf gives him a key, and it all gets a bit confusing. Balin provides a contract for Bilbo to sign, and she takes a seat at the table and reads through it quietly, with Bofur delivering witty re-interpretations of some of the drier clauses. Bofur has a downright naughty sense of humour, naughtier even than Belladonna’s, and Bilbo laughs so hard that there are tears running down her face. She can’t remember the last time she enjoyed herself so much.

She signs the contract with a flourish, and tries not to think too hard about the surprise on Balin’s face when she returns it to him.

The dwarves are all ready to set off again after that, but it is very late by that point, and Bilbo won’t hear of it. She sets Thorin and his nephews up in the spare rooms, and then she lays out some mattresses and blankets before the hearth for the rest of them.

She is fetching extra pillows from the linen cupboard when the lantern is suddenly blown out, and a large hand falls upon her shoulder.

She starts and turns around, but in the dark she can’t see anything. “Who’s there?”

“Doesn’t matter,” says a gruff voice. It’s not Gandalf, she knows that much, but past that it could be any member of the company and she wouldn’t have a clue. “Here, you’ll need these.”

The invisible hands press a bundle of wool into Bilbo’s grasp, and she feels the shape of them, increasingly confused as to what it is that she’s holding. And then she figures it out. “Are these… socks? Thank you for the thought, but, you see, hobbits don’t wear anything on our feet. In fact, to be called a soft-foot is quite an insult…”

“They’re not for your feet,” says her unseen benefactor exasperatedly. “Shove them down the front of your breeches.”

“ _What_?” she demands, heart in her throat.

The dwarf, whoever it is, sighs. “You won’t need to bind your breasts – you’re fat enough that it doesn’t matter. But sometimes people notice what _isn’t_ there a lot more than what _is_ there.”

“Th-thank you,” she stutters, clutching the socks, but there is no reply, and she realises that the other dwarf has left.

She doesn’t quite know what to make of the encounter. They haven’t even left yet and she’s already been discovered – but the other dwarf hadn’t revealed her secret, he’d _helped_ her.

Bilbo brings the pillows back to the living room, and distributes them amongst the dwarves, watching them carefully to see if any of them reacts to her differently. None of them glance at her for more than a moment. Could it have been Bofur? He seemed the friendliest of the lot, and perhaps the most likely to help her out… The dwarves all have different accents, but the dwarf in the linen closet had spoken so gruffly that Bilbo couldn’t really make much of it out.

Before they go to sleep, Thorin starts humming a haunting tune, and then they all join in, singing a very old and very sad ballad. Bofur’s voice is surprisingly mellifluous, deep and rumbling, and Bilbo stands spellbound in the doorway for the length of the song.

She goes away to pack her bags after that, wrapping the shipbiscuits in waxed baking paper, and including her oldest and hardiest clothes. She’s travelled enough by now to know to be very careful about what exactly she takes with her. She can’t take more than a pony will be able to carry, and really she shouldn’t take more than she can carry herself, just in case. Her sword is the heaviest thing that she plans to bring, but she’s grown accustomed to its weight by now.

The fire begins to die down, and soon the sound of crackling flames is replaced by the sound of snoring dwarves. Bilbo sinks into her bed, and closes her eyes, and tries not to worry too much about what tomorrow will bring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Several characters are narratively misgendered by Bilbo from this chapter onwards. The misgendering is according to their perceived/disguised gender (not assigned gender), and they are never misgendered once their actual genders/sexes are revealed.


	4. Chapter 4

They leave early in the morning, heading for Bywater, where Thorin has arranged to buy ponies for the Company. There are sixteen of them in total, as well as Gandalf’s horse; fourteen for the dwarves (and hobbit) to ride on, and two to act as packhorses for supplies.

Bilbo doesn’t know whether to be horrified or amused when it turns out that one of the ponies is named Bungo. The pony even looks a little like her father – his hide is a light brown, and he has that same sort of dour, resigned expression. Bilbo’s own pony is named Myrtle, and she’s never met a sweeter creature. 

They make it out of the Shire quickly enough. It helps that Gandalf knows the shortcuts, the ones that the Big Folk never seem to notice. Apparently dwarves are the same, because Thorin seems rather perplexed at how swiftly they make it through to Bree-land.

Bilbo ends up riding beside Bofur for most of the day. She starts sneezing uncontrollably at one point, which is strange, because her allergies haven’t acted up so badly in years. Bofur rips a pocket off his jacket for her to use as a makeshift handkerchief, and she thanks him profusely, blowing her nose and tucking it away into her pack. The day is very pleasant, and the sun is shining brightly, and she finds that she is quite enjoying herself. Bofur is far and away the friendliest of the dwarves – which isn’t to say that the others are _unfriendly_ , except perhaps Thorin. It’s more that the others are either standoffish (Nori and Dori), nervous (Ori, Fili, and Kili) or outright perplexed (Dwalin). The older folk, Balin and Oin and Gloin, don’t even seem to register her presence. Bombur is sweet, and Bifur is a little intimidating but seems amiable enough. Bofur is the only one who actually makes the effort to talk to Bilbo.

By mid-morning Bilbo feels that she has a decent grasp of all the dwarves’ names, helped along by Bofur, who is happy to repeat them as many times as it takes for the knowledge to stick. Their family connections are easy to understand as well, due to the rhyming naming conventions, though she’ll admit that Bofur’s explanations are helpful. Bofur and Bombur don’t look much like each other, and they look even less like their cousin. Bofur has dark hair and dark slanted eyes that put Bilbo in mind of Natsuki, while Bombur is paler, with bright red hair; he has the same slant to his eyes, but they are blue rather than brown. Their mother was from the Orocarni Mountains, Bofur explains, from the Ironfist tribe, while their father hailed from Khazad-dûm. Bofur takes more after their mother, and Bombur takes more after their father, who was Bifur’s uncle. Bifur’s father was also from the Orocarni Mountains, though from a different tribe: the Blacklocks, which is why his skin is so dark, and why his two-coloured hair is so frizzy.

Dori, Nori, and Ori don’t look much like each other either, though they are apparently brothers. Dori’s skin is so black it’s almost blue, with a shock of bright white hair braided fussily around the crown of his head; Nori’s skin is brown, and his hair is russet; and Ori is as pale as anything, with a little mousy bowl-cut. They all have different fathers, Bofur says, though they don’t like to talk about it. They are related to Thorin in some unknowable way, as most of the Company is, but in the case of the House of Ri the relation is on the wrong side of the blanket. Whatever that means.

The bundle of woollen socks feels strange in Bilbo’s breeches, and she’d had to pin them in place to keep them from rolling around, but they seems to be serving their purpose, since none of the dwarves have noticed her secret. Well, apart from the mysterious dwarf in the linen closet, whoever that was. Bilbo finds herself hoping that it was Bofur just because he’s the nicest of them.

She’d been happy enough to skip second breakfast while they got the ponies all sorted out, but at elevenses and lunch she takes a ration of shipbiscuits out of her pack to nibble on as they ride along. She’s a little surprised when the dwarves don’t actually stop for lunch. Three meals a day is one thing, but _two_? It’s likely a constraint of travelling more than a habit, but Bilbo is very glad that she had thought to bring her own provisions along. Obviously the ways of dwarves are very different to the ways of hobbits, and she would not like them to think her a burden. She could survive on two meals a day for a little while, perhaps, but she would be starving within weeks.

Bofur finally notices when she brings another shipbiscuit out of her pack for teatime. “What’s that?” he asks, craning his head a little to see what she’s got in her hands.

“Shipbiscuit,” she says. “It’s an old family recipe. Would you like one?”

Bofur grins. “Don’t mind if I do.”

She tosses one over, still in its waxy wrapping, and he drops the reins to catch it. Bofur gives the shipbiscuit a curious sniff before he bites into it. “It’s hard,” he says in surprise.

Bilbo chuckles. “That’s so it will last,” she explains. “You’ve got something similar, I think – called _cram_?”

“Cram’s not nearly so nice as this,” he says, wrinkling his nose. “Hopefully it’ll be a while before we’re reduced to that.”

“Well,” she says, “hobbits eat a lot more than dwarves. So I brought along my own.”

Bofur frowns. “You’re meant to be provided for by the Company, though. That’s what the contract says.”

“I don’t mind,” she says, shrugging. “It’s best I’ve got it with me, anyway, so I can eat on horseback – we’d never get anywhere if we had to stop for meals seven times a day.”

“ _Seven_?” he repeats, looking gobsmacked. He looks her up and down, gaze lingering on her tummy, and Bilbo has to look away quickly before she starts blushing. “But where does it all _go_?”

“The usual places, I expect,” she says. She’s pudgy, but it’s not because she overeats. That’s just how hobbits are shaped. “Hobbits just process things differently.”

“Apparently so,” says Bofur. He gives her a sly little smile, and then starts to tell her about his cousin’s toy-making business. Bilbo hasn’t spoken to Bifur much, but she wonders if she might be able to learn his sign language. She’s never heard of the kind of toys that Bofur describes to her – little wooden horses with articulated joints, and clockwork soldiers that rush about the room – and she has a feeling that some of her littler cousins would be beside themselves with delight at such gifts.

When they make camp that night, Bofur lays out his bedroll beside Bilbo’s, and Bifur and Bombur sleep on her other side. Bilbo is touched by the gesture, especially since all of the dwarves seem to habitually clump into little family groups. She and Bombur strike up a conversation about cooking, and quickly find that they have a lot of common ground. Bilbo promises to write out some of her favourite recipes for him, and he seems thrilled beyond measure; in return he says he’ll teach her his secret for making almond macaroons, and his wife’s favourite way of skinning rabbits.

Despite the pleasant conversation, Bilbo finds it difficult to sleep. Every time she drifts off, some nightmare or other wakes her up, until finally she gets up and goes to sneak an apple to Myrtle. Usually when she has insomnia like this, lying awake doesn’t help anything, but getting up and distracting herself for half an hour with a book and a mug of chamomile tea can sometimes be enough to distract her body back into sleeping mode. There are no books or chamomile on this journey, but seeing to Myrtle calms her down enough that she thinks she’ll be able to sleep again.

While she is out of bed, she ducks into the trees to relieve her bladder, careful to be on the lookout for wayward dwarves. The Company all seem to be amazingly shy about pissing, which is one small mercy at least, since Bilbo would be hard-pressed to keep her secret with her breeches down around her ankles. Bathing might be more of a problem, but the dwarves don’t seem particularly inclined to bathe on the regular, so hopefully it just won’t come up.

On her way back to her bedroll, she hears a familiar noise screeching through the darkness, and freezes in place. “What was that?” Surely there couldn’t be orcs this far south. Maybe her nightmares had followed her into the waking world again.

“Orcs,” says Kili, and Bilbo’s heart sinks.

Of course, then Fili and Kili take it into their heads to spin a tale to wind Bilbo up, and Thorin gets in a snit and stalks off to the edge of the camp, and Bilbo begins to think that she’s never going to get to sleep.

Balin gets into a storytelling mood, and _all_ of the dwarves get up and out of bed.

Yes, it was a wonderful story, but it’s late and Bilbo is tired.

Unfortunately that sets the tone for the rest of the night, and whatever sleep Bilbo does manage to get is haunted by images of her father’s body, of a pale orc, of wolf howls echoing off the hills. Her own memories mix up in her head with Balin’s story and produce enough unpleasantness to ensure that she is very grumpy the next morning.

And then it starts to rain.

And doesn’t stop.

Bofur keeps determinedly trying to have a smoke as he rides, and even offers to share it with Bilbo at one point, but it’s no use. The rain keeps putting out the spark. Bilbo once again has reason to be glad of the weather-proof cloak that she’d procured for her trip to Rivendell, so many years ago. She’s also very glad that she’d wrapped her shipbiscuits in waxy paper – if the rain got to them, they’d get all mushy and ruined, and they wouldn’t last very long at all.

At least it gives them a chance to fill up their waterskins from the rainwater.

The sodden ball of woollen socks between Bilbo’s legs becomes more and more unpleasant as the rain continues. Her cloak doesn’t button up the front, so there’s no real helping it, unless she drops Myrtle’s reins in order to wrap the cloak over her lap.

Bofur looks unfairly pretty with drops of water clinging to his moustache, and eventually Bilbo voices something that she’s been wondering about since her conversation with Bombur. “Your brother mentioned that he’s married,” she says lightly. “Are you?”

Bofur chokes, and then starts to cough. “No,” he says hoarsely. “No, I’m not. There aren’t many women in Ered Luin, so most of them get betrothed during childhood, so that they can start popping out dwarflets as soon as they’re of bearing age. Bombur and Gudrun were lucky – she’s poor, like us, and her parents died back in Erebor, so there wasn’t anyone to arrange anything for her.”

Bilbo frowns. “But what if you fall in love? Can they break off the betrothal?”

“Sometimes,” says Bofur darkly. “Not always. Having children is seen as the noblest thing you can do, nobler than even being a warrior. We don’t have many women, so we don’t have many children, and after Erebor and Khazad-dûm… well, some people are worried that we’re going to die out.”

Bilbo is still frowning. “I know Ered Luin’s quite small – but I thought there were other dwarven kingdoms? The Iron Hills, and the Grey Mountains, and the Orocarni Mountains?”

“I didn’t say that we were _actually_ in danger of dying out,” says Bofur. “Just that the higher-ups fuss about it a lot.”

“That sounds very unfair on the women, then,” says Bilbo.

“It is,” says Bofur. He doesn’t sound angry, though; he just sounds tired. “They are taught to defend, but never to attack. They don’t travel. They can’t inherit wealth or titles. It’s a rough business.”

“What if someone’s infertile?” asks Bilbo. “Are they still… all of that?”

Bofur shakes his head. “They can travel, but then it’s like – it’s like they’ve _failed_. It’s the same when, uh, when someone’s designated female at birth but they’re actually male. Or with anyone else who doesn’t match their designations, or with women who love other women. It’s technically allowed, and theoretically there’s nothing wrong with it, but in practice it’s a very brave and difficult to do, being open about that sort of thing. People don’t take well to it. Easier just not to tell anyone – all dwarves look mostly the same anyway, except for the ceremonial braids. Not quite like hobbits.”

Bofur’s eyes look a little _too_ knowing when he says that, and Bilbo hastily changes the subject. She’s beginning to think that it really must have been Bofur in the linen closet, back in Bag End. She can take a hint.

They find a rough outcropping to sleep under that night, but it’s very cramped, and they are all forced to crowd uncomfortably close to each other. Once again Bilbo gets wedged between Bofur and Bombur, which at least means that she doesn’t get cold, but being pressed up against Bofur’s side carries its own set of problems. It hasn’t escaped Bilbo that the dwarves are all very beautiful, and Bofur, in her eyes, is even more beautiful than the rest of them, because of the ways his eyes crinkle up when he laughs, and the way he throws his whole body into every movement. Bilbo has the mad thought that at least she doesn’t actually have the appendage that the pair of socks is supposed to replace, because if she did then there might be an uncomfortable problem springing up between them. As it is, she thinks that she manages to conceal her attraction well enough.

If only Bofur weren’t so _sweet_. These are dangerous thoughts that Bilbo’s having. If she wants to come with them all the way to the Lonely Mountain, she’ll have to nip them in the bud, or else she’ll be discovered and thrown out of the Company long before they reach their destination.

And yet… if it _was_ Bofur in the linen closet, then he already knows her secret, and has chosen not to reveal it for reasons of his own. They might all die at the end of this quest, so why shouldn’t Bilbo make the most of every opportunity?

She resolves to think further on it before she takes any drastic action.

Bilbo actually manages to get to sleep that night, despite the thundering rain, and when she wakes up Bofur’s arm is thrown over her and her hair is in his mouth. Bilbo detangles herself as quietly as possible, and goes to start breakfast. It’s still raining, but it’s a little lighter now, and there’s enough space to build up a fire without setting any of the sleeping dwarves aflame.

They wake up gradually, in ones and twos, drawn by the smell of frying bacon. Fili and Kili seem to have lost the power of speech, and they lumber up beside her with their blankets wrapped around their shoulders, shooting intensely pleading looks first at Bilbo and then at the bacon. She takes pity and gives them a couple of rashers to munch on while she toasts some bread for the others. There are eggs and sautéed mushrooms, too, and she rations them out carefully into the wooden bowls that they each carry with them. Usually she’d ask Bombur before touching his supplies, but they need to be used up quickly or else they’ll go off.

Most of the dwarves are awake by the time that Bofur finally shuffles out of his bedroll, rubbing sleep out of his eyes and blinking at the weak morning light. He yawns, widely, spreading his arms, and Bilbo can’t help but admire the rippling muscles in his shoulders. When he approaches the fire, she wordlessly hands him a bowl of breakfast, and he stares at it as if she’s handed him a fistful of gold.

The rain continues for the next week, as they progress along the Great East Road. By the time the skies begin to clear, they are almost at the moorlands of the Misty Mountains. In fact they are not so far away from Rivendell, and Bilbo gets a little excited at the thought that they might stop there for a night or two, but Thorin quickly puts that hope to rest.

Bilbo has very little patience for Thorin’s vendetta against elves. It’s more than understandable for him to be angry with Thranduil, who had reneged on the treaties he had made with Erebor, but Thorin has never even _met_ Lord Elrond, or indeed any of his house. Painting all elves with the same brush regardless of their actions is thoughtless and cruel, and it will only bring Thorin grief in the long run, since it means that he will not look for help where it might be offered gladly.

She helps Bombur make dinner with a bit of a scowl on her face, thinking wistfully of the legendary hospitality of the Last Homely House. Bofur is full of compliments about their cooking, and he helps them to serve the stew into bowls, two of which Bilbo sets aside to take to Fili and Kili.

The trolls are an unpleasant surprise.

Unfortunately, things only go downhill from there.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Elvish translations at the end of the chapter.

When Gandalf directs them all through a hidden pass, Bilbo recognises her surroundings, and knows exactly where they are. She doesn’t say anything to Thorin, even though she knows how virulently he will react once he realises he’s been duped. Bilbo is exhausted, and more than a little annoyed, and she is _very_ ready to sleep in a real bed. 

The orcs had been a nasty surprise. Bilbo had suspected, after hearing their cries in the night, that the Company would encounter them on this journey, but still she was not quite prepared for her fears to come to pass. Still, she is quite proud of the way she had conducted herself; she had helped Bifur to kill one of the wargs, and she had injured one or two of the orcs as well. She might feel guilty for it, but in this case she is rather inclined to think that the orcs had brought it upon themselves by striking first.

The sight of Rivendell laid out before them, sparkling in the morning sun, is enough to make Bilbo’s heart ache. The last time she had walked these paths, she had been so very young, and her mother had still been alive. Everything had seemed so much less complicated back then.

Somewhat predictably, Thorin gets into a right tizzy once he realises they are in the valley of the elves, and the rest of the dwarves aren’t much better. Bilbo is just about done with their nonsense. The elves of Imladris have been nothing but kind to her and her kin, and she finds herself feeling rather resentful about the dwarves’ instinctive suspicion. Still, it all turns out all right in the end – as soon as Elrond offers them food, they are eager enough to make use of his facilities. When they realise the food is mostly made up of leafy salads, they aren’t quite so happy about it, but by that point Bilbo has little sympathy for their carrying-on.

Bofur had found a little elvish blade in the troll hoard, and he’d presented it rather shyly to Bilbo. She already has a fine sword of dwarfish make – something which Bofur had been rather chuffed about – but it can’t hurt to have two weapons rather than one, and she extracts a promise from Fili to teach her how to fight with dual blades. Thorin laid claim to a slightly more impressive sword, which Elrond tells them is named Orcrist, and Gandalf has purloined Glamdring. The dwarves seem happy enough to make use of elvish things when it suits them, and Bilbo comes very close to pointing out the hypocrisy, but decides that it’s just not worth the fuss it would cause.

Elrond doesn’t acknowledge Bilbo except for a little nod at dinner, and she is rather grateful for it, since one wrong word from the elf could blow her cover to pieces. She slips away after she has finished eating, wandering the old familiar halls, and feeling a deep sense of melancholy and nostalgia. Her feet bring her to the library before long, and that great hall takes her breath away just as it did the first time she saw it.

Curled up in her old corner, with a pile of books beside her, Bilbo can almost imagine that any moment now her mother will come trotting through those doors with a new bawdy joke to share. The thought sends a pang through her chest, and she gets up and goes wandering again.

She finds the guest rooms easily enough. The elves have put Thorin’s Company in the same set of rooms that Bilbo and her mother used to stay in. A few of the dwarves have chosen to share, but most of them have rooms of their own, which is a pleasant change after living in each other’s pockets for all this time. They’ll have to stay here at least a week, Thorin said, so that Elrond can work some hocus-pocus on the map.

Bilbo’s room is the only one with a hobbit-sized bed, and she shuts herself up in there with a sigh, leaning against the door from the inside. She’s growing to love her fractious group of dwarves, but they are very exhausting to be around sometimes.

This stopover came at a very lucky time. Bilbo’s belly is cramping up something awful, which is always a sign that her monthlies are about to start. She wouldn’t like to go through that on the road – and she _certainly_ wouldn’t like to go through it while being pursued by orcs. Even at her age, her cycle isn’t terribly regular, and travelling seems to disrupt it even further, so she counts her blessings that she has access to a bathroom for the next five days.

The bathrooms in the guest suite are communal, but they have private stalls with sinks in them, so Bilbo should be all right. She’s got her cloth pads and her soaps, and she’s been doing this once a month for thirty-five years, so she’s learnt how to be discreet. Unless any of the dwarves are particularly nosy about what she gets up to in the bathroom, it shouldn’t be a problem. Still, she’s got to be careful. If anything could give her away at once, it’s her monthlies.

None of the dwarves have retired yet, so the guest suite is largely empty. Bilbo tries not to think about what mischief they might be getting up to if they’re not here. Instead she takes advantage of their absence to go and wash up, and to figure out how to fix her cloth pad in place without dislodging the pair of socks. Abruptly it all seems very silly, and she has to stuff her fist in her mouth so that her laughter doesn’t echo around the marble bathroom.

She starts to feel hungry again after that, and she figures she might as well save her shipbiscuits for the road, so she meanders down to the kitchens. They’re still in the same place they were last time; she isn’t sure why she thought they might have moved, but who knows what kind of interior decorating shenanigans the elves can get up to in a couple of decades?

With the aid of a few of the kitchen helpers, Bilbo manages to whip up a pretty decent chicken and lettuce salad. Her Sindarin is pretty rusty, but she manages to communicate with them well enough. She asks after Elladan and Elrohir, but apparently they’ve been out on a hunting trip for the last few months; and then she thinks to ask about their brother Arwen, who had been living in Lothlórien. As it turns out, Arwen has returned, and has apparently been asking after Bilbo too. Elladan and Elrohir’s silly stories must have gone both ways.

“Arwen’s rooms are in the west wing,” offers one of the elves. “I can take you there now, if you like.”

“Thank you, that would be very kind,” says Bilbo, and she hops up out of her seat and follows the other elf through the halls.

Arwen’s rooms are right beside those of his brothers, and though Bilbo is quite disappointed that Elladan and Elrohir are not here, she is glad of the opportunity to meet the sibling they had spoken so highly of.

When she _does_ meet him, though, he’s not exactly what she expects.

Arwen is a tall, beautiful, willowy elf, with beautiful black hair and brown skin much like the twins’, but she unmistakeably presents as female. “ _Mae g’ovannen_ , Bilbo,” she says, smiling widely. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“I’ve heard a lot about you too,” says Bilbo, and then with a wicked grin, “though not all of it was terribly flattering.”

Arwen groans and puts her face into her hands. “What have my brothers told you?” she asks, peeking out from her fingers with an air of inevitable doom.

“They might have mentioned an incident involving Elrond’s best robes and a meeting of several rather important elders,” says Bilbo. “Also, the hunting trip where you fell in the river. Also, that time with the sheep’s skull in the privy –”

“Right, well,” says Arwen, rallying, “they told _me_ about your book forts. And about the time when you tripped _Ada_ into a mud-puddle and he chased you around the citadel for an afternoon.”

They stare at each other for a moment, and then break into giggles almost simultaneously.

After that the ice is thoroughly broken, and they curl up on Arwen’s chaise longue together, trading blackmail about the twins and recommending books for each other to read.

“I don’t mean to speak out of place,” says Bilbo hesitantly, “but I’d like to hurt your feelings even less, and I’m a little confused about something. You don’t have to answer this at all if it’s intrusive, but… I was under the impression that you were Elladan and Elrohir’s _brother_.”

“No, you’re not wrong,” says Arwen, perfectly cheerfully. “I underwent the _wirnë_ while I was staying with my grandmother. It is a source of great happiness to me.”

“ _Wirnë_?” repeats Bilbo, having a little trouble wrapping her tongue around the unfamiliar syllables.

Arwen’s brow wrinkles a little. “I don’t know the word for it in Westron,” she says, and gnaws on her lip. “Transformation? Transition? When I was born, my parents mistakenly thought I was a boy, though I knew differently. I have only come to terms with it in the past few decades, so my brothers did not know of it when you spoke to them of me. The _wirnë_ is… part self-acceptance, part declaration, part changing my body so that I would feel more comfortable in it. Not everyone changes their bodies in the _wirnë_ , but it felt right for me.”

“Thank you for explaining,” says Bilbo, and ducks her head.

“I don’t mind,” says Arwen. “It gets tiring when I have to explain it to everyone I meet, but you are kind, and my brothers speak highly of you.”

Bilbo feels worse rather than better after that pronouncement, but she figures it’s best just not to dwell on it, or else she’ll dig herself into an even deeper hole. “It sounds rough,” she says. “I dress as a man out of comfort, and I pretend to be one when I am with the dwarves, but that is a choice that I have made for myself, and not one that was made on my behalf. I can’t imagine having to grow up in a role that did not fit me.” Though, that is not quite true. The roles in the Shire _didn’t_ fit her, not really, which is why she is no longer there.

“ _Dwarves_ ,” says Arwen, rolling her eyes in sympathy.

“They are sweet when you get to know them,” says Bilbo, thinking of Bofur. “They are just very stubborn.”

“I heard that they’ve broken up some of the furniture for kindling,” says Arwen, though the suggestion seems to delight rather than annoy her. “And that one of them pulled down a curtain to use as a picnic rug.”

“Oh, dear,” says Bilbo tiredly. “Eru knows what they’ve been getting up to left to their own devices… I should probably get back to them.”

Arwen stands up, and gives her a little bow. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Bilbo Baggins,” she says earnestly. “Please visit again tomorrow, if you have the time.”

“I will,” Bilbo assures her, and then departs.

On her way back to the guest suite Bilbo runs into Dwalin, who looks to be in a grumpy mood. ‘Grumpy’ is Dwalin’s default state, though, so Bilbo doesn’t think much of it.

“You all right, laddie?” rumbles Dwalin, looking her up and down.

“Yes, quite,” says Bilbo agreeably, trying to side-step him and failing.

Dwalin looks down at her, eyes narrowed, and gives a rather unsubtle sniff. “Hmm,” he says.

Bilbo stares at him for a moment, and then a horrible thought hits her, and she flushes from her toes to the tip of her hairline. “Got to go!” she stammers, and darts beneath Dwalin’s arm, running off towards her room before the dwarf has a chance to string two words together.

Bilbo slows down a few corridors away, and leans her head against a cool pillar, breathing harshly. How good are dwarves’ senses of smell? So long as she changes her cloths every couple of hours, nobody should be able to notice anything… but the scent of her monthlies is rather unmistakable once you _do_ notice it.

 _How_ good are dwarves’ senses of smell?

Surely Dwalin couldn’t have noticed. He’d have raised a racket and outed her to Thorin, and they’d have sent her home immediately.

To be safe, she changes her cloths again before she goes looking for the rest of the dwarves, and she applies a little perfume that she had found in the bathroom. Elvish perfume is a bit too flowery for her taste, but she’d rather smell like flowers than menstrual blood.

True to Arwen’s word, the dwarves have indeed constructed a makeshift camp out of curtains and furniture, and they are all arrayed around the campfire in their smallclothes. None of them seem willing to strip down entirely even to sleep, though the summer is very hot at its peak, but Bilbo doesn’t question it, because it means that she can keep her own clothes on without looking out of place.

Arrayed over the balcony are several pairs of long-socks, hung up to dry, presumably after having been washed. At least the dwarves are washing _something_ , though their outerwear is all leather and metal, and they never seem to take off their smallclothes. Nori is guarding the socks with an eagle eye, as if he expects someone to steal them, and when Bilbo shows up he gives her a narrow look. Well! She might be the burglar of their Company, but from what she hears Nori is a better thief than she will ever be.

She thinks of her own surreptitious pair of socks, and has to fight down a blush.

Bifur and Bofur are toasting things over the fire, with limited degrees of success. Bofur has a little pan of sausages that seem to be turning out quite nicely, but Bifur seems determined to try to toast bits of flowers and green things, and he looks rather disappointed when they just wilt slowly over the flames.

“Hello, Bilbo,” says Bofur as she approaches, giving her a smile that stretches from ear to ear. Bilbo grins back at him in return, helplessly, and then sits down between them.

Bofur’s smile makes something in Bilbo’s stomach start to flutter wildly, and sitting next to him makes her skin prickle all over. She has two choices, she supposes. She can tell him about her feelings, and see what happens from there. Or she can suppress it, treat him as a friend, and try to forget about anything extra. It wouldn’t be fair on Bofur to continue to moon over him without saying anything about it. Bilbo’s had more than one friendship sour over such things.

Bilbo’s never been very good at forgetting about her feelings. It’s easier just to say things outright – and then either the other person will say yes, and she will have her desired outcome, or they will say no, and that lingering feeling of hope will finally have a reason to die down. It’s difficult to just forget about things when she doesn’t _know_ what Bofur might say, if she really did approach him.

So there’s only one sensible option, really.

She’ll have to tell him.

The very worst case scenario is that Bofur will be horrified, will tell the whole Company that Bilbo’s a woman travelling with them under false pretenses, and she will have to stay here in Rivendell for a while. That’s not so bad. And the best case scenario – that Bofur already knows her secret, and returns her feelings – is just too good to pass up.

She’s got a whole week of relative comfort and privacy. Surely at some point during their stay she’ll have the opportunity to draw Bofur aside and have a private word with him.

“Here – what are you grinning about, Bilbo?” asks Bofur suddenly, giving her a funny look.

“Nothing,” says Bilbo, leaning back on her hands. “I’m just glad to be here with all of you.”

Bofur opens his mouth, and then shuts it, and then he goes very pink under his moustache. “Well,” he mumbles. “That’s – that’s good.”

Bilbo steals a sausage while he’s busy being flummoxed, and Bifur lets a sudden roar of laughter, which in turn startles Bofur so much that he falls over. The other dwarves start to laugh as well, and Bilbo looks around at them and feels very warm and very happy.

She made the right decision, coming on this journey.

She just hopes that it doesn’t come back to bite her in the arse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Elvish:  
>  _Mae g’ovannen_ – well met  
>  _Ada_ – father  
>  _wirnë_ – change. Couldn’t find a word for ‘transition’, so there you go.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Khuzdul translations at the end of the chapter.

Bilbo spends the next few days mainly keeping to herself, occasionally visiting Arwen, or going to the library, or visiting Arwen in the library. She tries to conceal these trips from Thorin, but he somehow manages to find out anyway, and then he gets angry over Bilbo spending time with an _elf_ , which only makes Bilbo want to avoid the Company even more.

Her efforts to get Bofur alone are fruitless at first. Bofur is a very social creature, and he and Bifur are very close, and he and Bombur are practically inseparable. All three of them are sharing a room together, which means that Bilbo can’t speak to Bofur when he’s preparing for bed. They eat all of their meals together too, and Bofur seems fairly determined to spend time with as many members of the Company as possible. He’d already known them before the trip began, of course, but to varying degrees of familiarity. The Ur clan is one of the only families _not_ mysteriously related to the line of Durin in some way, so they are outsiders of a sort. Bofur’s got the right idea, building trust and camaraderie, but Bilbo wishes that he would leave off for just a moment so that she could speak to him without any of the other nosy dwarves listening in.

Eventually, on the fifth day of their stay and the last day of Bilbo’s monthlies, she finally manages to get Bofur alone. It’s not easy. She has to cause several simultaneous distractions in different parts of the citadel, and then she has to stop Bofur haring off with the others to go see what’s happening. Finally, though, it’s just the two of them, walking leisurely through the corridors in the vague direction of the gardens.

“I’d like to talk to you about something,” says Bilbo, choosing her words with care.

Bofur’s step falters a little, and he looks a little pale when he turns to answer her. “Of course,” he says. “What is it?”

Now that the moment is finally here, Bilbo finds that all of her carefully-rehearsed lines have gone out the window. “Well,” she says, a little flustered. “It’s just that – I like you. Quite a bit. And I was wondering if you’d like to, uh, share my bed this evening.” Or for the rest of her life. Either one.

Bofur stops and gapes at her for a moment, and Bilbo has a horrible feeling that it’s all going to go wrong, before he collects himself. “I’m very – I’m very flattered,” he says, clearing his throat. Bilbo feels a little disappointed – she knows what usually comes after those lines. _I’m flattered, but I’m not interested in you that way._ But that’s okay. You can’t make someone return your feelings if they don’t already. At least this way she’ll have her answer.

But Bofur surprises her. “I’m flattered,” he says again, “and… I can’t say that I don’t return your feelings. But I… there are some things I haven’t told you. And I will! Tell you, that is. But not here.”

Hope wars with puzzlement, and Bilbo ends up trailing after Bofur in the direction of her own rooms, wondering what on earth is going on. She’d pictured a number of ways this conversation could go, but this wasn’t one of them.

When they finally reach Bilbo’s room, and close the door firmly behind them, Bilbo is all too aware of her mussed-up bed, with all the blankets thrown around in a tangled heap. The bed seems to loom over the room, and she finds herself imagining pleasant combinations of herself, the bed, and Bofur, and she has to make a considerable effort to drag her gaze away and fix it instead on Bofur’s face.

Bofur is _worried_. He keeps wringing his hands, but doesn’t seem to notice that he’s doing it, and he paces back and forth with short, tight movements. “This is difficult,” he says, apropos of nothing. “I’d not – I’d not thought… I didn’t anticipate… that is to say. Bilbo. I’m a woman.”

The words don’t seem to register at first. Bilbo stares at him – her? – and Bofur’s face falls, but then Bilbo hurries to pull herself together, and she says, “Me too!”

“ _You too_?”

“Well – yes,” says the hobbit, quite bewildered. “I thought you knew.”

“You thought – what?” Bofur seems to have lost the ability to string together complete sentences.

“The linen closet!” says Bilbo, waving her arms around. “The socks! That wasn’t you?”

“Closet – socks – _what_?”

“Okay,” says Bilbo. She takes a deep breath. “It seems we have a lot to talk about.”

She sits down on the unmade bed, and pats the space beside her. Bofur cautiously comes to join her, absently twiddling her moustache, and refusing to meet Bilbo’s eyes.

“All right,” says Bilbo. “I’ll go first. I identify as a woman, but I dress like a man because I like it. That’s not normal in the Shire, but nor is adventuring, so there was no chance of me ever being respectable. I’ve read about dwarven women not being allowed to travel, so when you all showed up at my doorstep I just… didn’t correct the misunderstanding. It seemed easiest. I like you a lot, and so long as you’re happy, the shape of your body doesn’t concern me in the slightest. So.”

“Well,” says Bofur, and then seems to lose her nerve. Bilbo silently winds her fingers into the dwarf’s, and Bofur seems to take heart from that. “I’m not an _amagurûn_ ,” she says first, and then backtracks. “There’s not a good translation for that. What I mean is – my identity matches the identity I was given at birth. I am an _agâninh_ , a beginning-woman. I wear the braids of a man because – because –”

She falters, and Bilbo clutches her hand all the tighter. She wants to kiss the twisted expression off of Bofur’s face, but it doesn’t seem like an appropriate moment for that sort of thing.

“You have to understand – I don’t know what it’s like in the Shire, but dwarven women aren’t treated like human women, or elven women either. We’re… the idea is that we are very precious, like rare jewels, so we are taught to defend ourselves, but at the same time we’re locked up to be protected. Like treasure. We can take up crafts, but we’re supposed to stay at home and have children and protect the household. And we’re not – we’re not allowed to do anything dangerous. Like going to war, or working in the mines. Only, when you’re poor, working in the mines is one of the only decent jobs you can get.” She trails off again, miserably, and stares off into the distance for a while.

“So it’s not just to join the Company,” prompts Bilbo gently. “It started earlier? 

“Yes,” says Bofur, exhaling heavily. “When I was younger – well. Bifur, after… his head injury, he just wasn’t the same, and we were always having to get medicine that we couldn’t afford for him. Bombur was working in the kitchens, but it wasn’t enough. So I changed my braids and went out and got a job in the mines. And then, well, when Thorin asked us to join him, I couldn’t pass that up, could I?”

“No,” says Bilbo softly. “No, I don’t suppose you could have.”

They sit in silence for a while, and then Bofur asks, “So what’s this about a linen closet?”

“Oh,” says Bilbo, and blushes a little. “That night in Bag End – someone knew, about my secret, I mean. I couldn’t see who it was because they blew out the light. But he gave me a pair of socks to, well, you know.”

It appears that Bofur _does_ know, because she grins in a naughty sort of way, and then grows serious again. “So you don’t know who it was,” she says thoughtfully, and a little nervously. “And it could have been any of the Company?”

“Not _any_ of the Company,” hedges Bilbo. “Not Gandalf, and not you, apparently. And – I suppose – not Bifur or Bombur, since they probably would have told you. Wouldn’t they?”

“Yes,” says Bofur at once. “We don’t keep secrets from each other. And Bifur doesn’t speak Westron, anyway, so you would have known if it was him.”

“Bit of a mystery, then,” says Bilbo, tapping her fingers against the bedspread. Honestly, she’d been so certain that it was Bofur that she hadn’t even given a thought to who else it might be. None of the rest of the Company really talk to her that much, except perhaps for the young ones. Fili and Kili couldn’t keep a secret to save their lives, and Ori’s voice is much too high and soft for it to have been him.

“I don’t like the thought that someone knows things and is keeping it to himself,” says Bofur. “I wonder if he knows about me, too?”

“I thought that Dwalin might have noticed something earlier,” says Bilbo. “But he’s too loyal to Thorin, he wouldn’t hide anything from his king.”

Bofur flops back onto the bed, wriggling around a little so the blankets wrap around her. “My head hurts,” she complains. “Come and give me a cuddle?”

Bilbo acquiesces happily, snuggling up against Bofur’s side. Bofur’s still wearing her hat, so instead of stroking her hair Bilbo strokes her moustache, lightly tracing the shape of the dwarf’s jaw.

“That tickles,” says Bofur, with a funny note in her voice.

“Sorry,” says Bilbo. “Do you want me to stop?”

“Nope,” says Bofur. “Keep going. I like it.”

“I like _you_ ,” says Bilbo. “Especially when you’re all sweet and cuddly like this.”

Bofur is quiet for a moment. “I can’t make you any promises,” she says. “Don’t even know if we’ll both survive the quest. But I’d like to… court you, I suppose. See how we travel. See if we like each other enough to make a proper go of it.”

“That sounds lovely,” says Bilbo. “Can I court you too, or is it just a one-way thing?”

“No, it can go both ways,” says Bofur. “I think that’s the best way, actually.”

“I’ve heard that dwarves only love once.”

Bofur snorts. “That’s what we’re _supposed_ to do. But nobody says you can’t love more than one child – or more than one parent – or more than one friend. Why should it be any different for romantic love? Dwarves can fall in love more than once. At the same time, even. We just keep mum about it when it happens, because it tends to cause trouble.”

Bofur strokes her hands up and down Bilbo’s arms, and Bilbo shivers a little, in a good way. “I think I could love you,” she says, perhaps a bit too honestly.

Bofur stops her stroking for a moment, and then resumes. “I hope so,” she says. “I think I could love you, too.”

They lie there for long enough that Bilbo’s tummy starts to rumble. They get up, then, and make themselves presentable, and Bilbo goes to the bathroom to change her cloths, and then they go down to the kitchens together.

The elves had continued to host fancy meals in the gazebo, but after the first time the dwarves just stopped showing up. Instead they started gathering in the kitchens, since they’d been thoroughly scolded for the cook-out on the balcony. When they get there, Bombur is cooking up a nice chicken broth, and a few of Thorin’s Company are waiting for him to finish.

Bofur goes up to Bombur and whispers something in his ear, and then asks Bilbo if she can take over the stirring for a little while. She does so, and Bofur taps Bifur on the shoulder and draws both of her relatives off into the corner, where they hold a quick conversation in _iglishmêk_ , the dwarven sign language. They are careful to keep their hand movements obscured, so that the other dwarves in the kitchens don’t overhear anything sensitive.

Bombur’s chicken broth smells _delicious_ , and Bilbo’s mouth waters a little as she stirs. The other dwarves are gathered around a large elf-sized table, with their feet dangling off the elf-sized chairs. Nori has organised some sort of card game, which he appears to be cheating outrageously at, though none of his opponents seem to have noticed.

Bombur returns, and helps Bilbo to distribute the broth among their Company, who all give a loud cheer when they realise that the food is ready. Bilbo eats her food quickly and quietly, curious as to what Bofur was talking to them about, but reluctant to ask in case it was private.

After dinner the Ur siblings flank Bilbo at either side and steer her out of the kitchens, with Bifur taking up the rear. They wait until they’re a sensible distance away, and then they stop in a little alcove, where they’re unlikely to be overheard.

“We’ve had a bit of a talk,” says Bofur. “I’ve told my kin that we’ll be courting, and that you know – about me – and they’ve decided they want to tell you something, too.”

Bifur starts in with a serious of hand gestures that fly together so quickly that Bilbo only catches about every fifth word. She’s been learning _iglishmêk_ gradually, but she still doesn’t have the speed or mastery of someone raised to the language. Bofur is kind enough to translate for her.

“‘I started dressing as a man to go to war,’” relays Bofur, with her eyes on Bifur’s hands. “‘At Azanulbizar we needed every willing soldier. After the injury, I could not go back to braiding in the way of an _agâninh_ , because the axe in my head would have given me away, and all would know what I had done. It is lonely, sometimes, but at other times I am glad of it, because I have more freedom than I would otherwise. I am glad to have come on this quest.’”

Bifur’s hands still, then, and Bofur stops talking.

“Oh, _Bifur_ ,” says Bilbo, a little teary-eyed. “Can I hug you?”

Bifur nods, and Bilbo loops her arms around the dwarf’s neck, slowly, careful not to knock against the axe in her forehead. “I am sorry for your troubles,” says the hobbit.

Bifur murmurs something incomprehensible into her hair, and then releases her.

Bombur steps forward, then, looking a little nervous. “I am not _agânûl_ , but I am not _amugurul_ either,” says the dwarf. “I braid in the way that men do so that – so that people won’t laugh at me, or stop me from going places. And so that I could marry Gudrun. I don’t feel like a man, but I don’t feel like a woman either. I’m somewhere in between. There isn’t a word for it in Khuzdul, or in the Common Tongue."

“But we can make up a word, eh?” says Bofur, jostling her sibling’s arm. Turning to Bilbo, she explains, “Bombur _thinks_ that there isn’t a word, but they’ve never met anyone else like them, so we don’t know for sure.”

“Them?” asks Bilbo.

“It sounds better in Khuzdul,” says Bombur. “In the Common Tongue it doesn’t come across quite so well. I don’t like to use masculine or feminine pronouns, because I don’t feel like I’m strictly masculine or strictly feminine.”

“Okay,” says Bilbo, and then something strikes her. “But – should I still use masculine pronouns around the others? I don’t want to give any of you away.”

The dwarves look at each other, and then they all nod at once. “The wrong pronouns make me feel uncomfortable, but I’d be a lot more uncomfortable if someone found out who I am,” says Bombur.

Bilbo looks at Bofur then. “Did you tell them about me?”

The dwarf shakes her head. “That’s for you to share, if you want to.”

“Right then,” says Bilbo. “I’m an – an _agâninh_ too,” she says, quite sure that she’s mangling the pronunciation.

Bombur and Bifur don’t really react much, except to shuffle around on their feet a little. “We’d sort of guessed,” says Bombur, going a bit pink. “I mean, I used to visit Bree for the farmer’s markets, and I spent a bit of time around hobbits. I’m a bit more familiar with your ways than the rest of the Company is. I thought you might be an _amagurûn._ ”

If Bombur could guess, then someone else could too. It’s out of Bilbo’s hands, so she tries not to worry about it. The three of them, Gandalf, and the dwarf in the linen closet – that’s five people who know her secret.

“Don’t let Thorin know that we’re teaching you Khuzdul,” says Bofur. “He’d have a fit.”

“I won’t,” promises Bilbo. Another secret to add to her collection.

They return together to the room that Bofur’s family shares, and they spend the rest of the evening teaching Bilbo more _iglishmêk_ signs. The better her understanding of the language gets, the more she understands that Bifur’s sense of humour is actually just as wicked as Bofur’s, though she’s a little more stoic about it, and a little better at maintaining a straight face. Bilbo tells them about the dwarf in the linen closet, but neither Bifur nor Bombur have any idea who it might be.

When it starts to get late, Bilbo leaves for her own room, and Bofur joins her. They don’t get a lot of sleep that night; they are too busy taking advantage of the privacy afforded by the guest suite. Bilbo thinks that exploring the body of a new lover is, if not her _favourite_ thing, at least among her top five favourite things. Bofur seems to feel the same way, if her loud moans are any indication.

Bilbo’s really going to miss having a real bed to sleep in.

Two days later Elrond reads the moon-runes, and the day after that the Company of Thorin Oakenshield packs up and leaves Rivendell behind them. Bilbo can’t help but cast a wistful look back over the valley, but she knows that she’ll visit again, if she survives to return.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Khuzdul:  
>  _amagurûn_ – bear-man, i.e. trans man. My headcanon is that the dwarves know a little about skinchangers, so in their culture bears represent transformation.  
>  _amugurul_ – bear-like, i.e. trans (here used in a binary sense).  
>  _agâninh_ – beginning-lady, i.e. cis woman.  
>  _agânûl_ – beginning-like, i.e. cis.  
>  _Iglishmêk_ – dwarven sign language.  
>  _Khuzdul_ – dwarven spoken language.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings and Khuzdul translations at the end of the chapter.

If Bilbo thought that she was close to the Ur clan before Rivendell, it’s nothing compared to what their relationship is like after their shared revelations. Bofur, Bifur and Bombur are fiercely protective of her all of a sudden, keeping Bilbo between two or three of them at all times, and reacting harshly to even joking insults from the rest of the Company. Travelling on foot is a lot slower than travelling on ponies, but Bilbo finds reasons to be glad of the change. For one thing, it means that she and Bofur can spend more of their time chatting, without having to separate for thin paths that will not fit two ponies side by side.

Bifur carves a serviceable walking stick out of a fallen branch, and gifts it to Bilbo. It comes in very useful, since Bilbo’s feet are extraordinarily tough, but they don’t grip as well as the dwarves’ hobnailed boots on rocky ground.

Thorin doesn’t seem to approve of their deepening friendship, but Thorin doesn’t approve of anything. He is not quite as hostile as he was at the start of the trip – Bilbo seems to have proved herself a little by showing off her swordsmanship in their brief fight against the orcs – but he still doesn’t like her much. Bilbo thinks a lot of it is just that she is not a dwarf, and so she is not beholden to Thorin Oakenshield, nor is her behaviour predictable or understandable to him.

His sister-sons are another story. Fili and Kili are sweet, silly boys, and they remind Bilbo of her Tookish cousins back in the Shire. She had worried at first that they were too immature for this sort of quest, but they are serious enough on the battlefield where it counts. They don’t seem to share their uncle’s irrational grudges, and they are very friendly when they get the chance to be, but mostly they are kept at a distance by the Ur dwarves.

That all changes on their second night out of Rivendell. Away from the strictures of the elves, the Company takes it upon themselves to get as rowdy and as drunk as possible, shrieking and singing and dancing into the night. Bilbo doesn’t drink much – she likes the taste of cider but she doesn’t like the feeling of being intoxicated – but the dwarves do not restrain themselves at all. Bifur is a morose drunk, but Bofur is a cuddly one, and she spends most of the evening draped over Bilbo’s side and pressing sloppy kisses into her neck.

When most of the dwarves have fallen into a drunken stupor, snoring fully-clothed in their bedrolls, Bilbo slips away to relieve herself in the bushes. She’s found that she’s capable of pissing standing up so long as her breeches are well out of the way, but she still tries to be as secluded as possible when she conducts her business, just in case.

When she is buttoning up her breeches again, she hears a rustling and a cut-off giggle in the bushes behind her, and she freezes. It’s all right, she tells herself, she’d already tucked her socks back into her pants, whoever it is couldn’t have seen anything…

And then Fili and Kili stumble into her path, hooting with laughter and with their breeches and smallclothes down around their ankles. When they catch sight of Bilbo, identical looks of intense horror bloom across their faces. Bilbo tries not to – she really does – but before she can look away, her gaze slips downwards, and… oh.

“Sorry,” she says quickly, whirling around so that she’s facing away from them. There is a hasty flurry of buttoning-up and frantic whispers behind her, and then someone taps her on the shoulder, and she turns around again.

Fili and Kili are looking at her with the pleading, dramatically mournful expressions that only the _very_ drunk can achieve.

Bilbo is only a little tipsy, but she’s still far too drunk to have this conversation. “So,” she says, and then blurts out, “I suppose you’re _amugurul_?”

“How do you know that word?” demands Fili.

“No, we’re _agânînh_ – beginning-women,” says Kili, looking up glumly from beneath her hair. “Please don’t tell Thorin!”

“Thorin doesn’t _know_?” asks Bilbo in shock, and then she collects herself. “I’m sorry, that’s not my business. Of course I won’t tell anyone. If it helps, I’m… I’m a woman too. And we’re not even the only ones.” Perhaps she shouldn’t have revealed that last part, but she’s having trouble thinking clearly.

“You’re… what?” breathes Kili, looking wide-eyed, as if Bilbo had just announced that she was Durin the Deathless himself.

Fili, on the other hand, holds her hands up in front of her face and stares at them intensely. “I’m drunk,” she announces in surprise, and then she looks back to Bilbo. “Am I hallucinating?”

“You’re not hallucinating,” says the hobbit, a little annoyed now. “Look, just – go back to bed. It’s too late for this. We can talk about it in the morning if you really want to.”

Kili looks torn. “But I still need to piss,” she whispers.

“Eru’s fluffy whiskers, go and piss then!” says Bilbo, throwing up her hands. She turns and stalks back to their camp, fuming under her breath. The silliness of dwarves!

She pummels her bedroll into place, and wiggles between Bofur and Bombur, and goes to sleep thinking very uncharitable thoughts. Six of them now, and six secrets to keep. She has a feeling this isn’t going to end well.

In the morning she is a little more sympathetic, if only because most of the dwarves are _deeply_ hungover and _deeply_ miserable, Fili and Kili included. The two of them keep darting nervous glances towards the hobbit, and whispering between themselves, and Bilbo has the sneaking feeling that neither of them is quite sure whether the events of last night actually happened. Eventually she takes pity on them, and approaches them herself while they’re packing up the camp.

She’d spoken to the Ur dwarves already, telling them only that there were other _agânînh_ in the Company, and asking whether they’d mind if Bilbo shared their secrets. Even without knowing who the other _agânînh_ were, Bofur gave her permission readily enough, and her relatives followed after a quick discussion. They had mutually agreed that the risk was worth it – after all, Fili and Kili could not expose the Ur clan without exposing themselves in the process. And it would be nice, Bombur said, to not feel so alone.

Bilbo had thought that she was done being thrown for a loop by the kindness of the Ur dwarves, but it seems that they have even deeper reserves of compassion than she had believed to be possible.

“Good morning, isn’t it?” says Bilbo breezily, tipping up her head to drink in the sun.

Fili and Kili look a little uncertain. Bilbo allows them to wallow in it for a moment, and then she sighs.

“If you need clarification,” she says, looking around to be sure that none of the others are nearby, “I am an _agâninh_ , you are _agânînh,_ and Bifur and Bofur are _agânînh_ too. Bombur isn’t an _agânûn_ , but they’re not an _agâninh,_ or _amugurul_ either. I’m not going to tell anybody about your secret. Any questions?”

The girls are too busy gaping at her to ask anything.

Bilbo sighs again.

“You’re really not going to tell anybody?” asks Kili, brow furrowed.

“I swear on my mother’s tea cosies, I will not,” says Bilbo, only half-joking.

“Okay,” says Kili, and lapses into silence again.

Fili is the next one to speak up. “So… Bifur and Bofur… and Bombur… are like us? Do they know about us?”

“No,” says Bilbo, exasperated. “I just said I wouldn’t tell anyone, didn’t I? You can tell them yourselves, if you like. They won’t expose you, and it’d be a nice gesture, considering they allowed me to tell you even though they don’t know who you are.”

“That was very brave of them,” says Fili pensively.

“Yes, it was,” says Bilbo a little waspishly.

Kili bites her lip. “We didn’t _want_ to hide it,” she says. “It’s only that – nobody would have let us do anything, otherwise. And women can’t inherit, so Thorin wouldn’t have had any heirs. Mum told us all about it, when we were really young, and then she let us decide for ourselves what to do. Weigh our options, like. And we each decided – separately – that we wanted to wear the braids of men. Nobody else knows that we’re – that we’re _agânînh_. Not even our uncle.”

“That sounds very lonely, with only each other for company,” says Bilbo, eyes softening. She rolls up her bedroll and tucks it under the strap of her satchel, then swings the satchel onto her back. The motion seems to remind the sisters that they have yet to finish their own packing, and they hurry to catch up.

“I’ve never met another dwarf like us before,” says Fili, shoving her boots onto her feet. “Do you think Bofur and the rest will want to talk to us about it?”

“I’m sure they will,” says Bilbo.

“That’d be nice,” says Kili wistfully. “Mum wanted to come on the quest, you know, but they wouldn’t let her. If it was up to Thorin alone, it might have been different, but… Well. Just goes to show we made the right decision.”

Bilbo claps her on the shoulder, and they go to join the others.

Over the course of the day, Fili and Kili converge upon various dwarves: Bofur, Bifur, Bombur, and Ori, though not all at once. Every time they want to speak to someone, the sisters grab that dwarf’s arms and drag them off away from the rest. Even Thorin can’t ignore that level of unsubtlety, and he takes to watching them with a distinct wrinkle between his eyebrows. Bilbo can only hope that Fili and Kili wise up before long, or else they’ll all be given away before breakfast tomorrow.

Just after dinner Ori pulls the hobbit aside, and asks if he can speak with her for a moment. Bilbo agrees, and the two of them walk a little ways away from the camp. She has a sinking feeling that she knows what Ori wants to talk about, but she hopes that she’s wrong.

“Fili and Kili told me you’re an _agâninh_ ,” blurts out the little dwarf.

Bilbo has a moment of abject horror – surely Fili and Kili would not have shared her secret so carelessly? – but then Ori says, hurriedly, “It’s all right if you are. I am too.”

“Oh,” says Bilbo. “In that case… well, yes. I am.”

Ori’s face lights up with happiness. “And Bifur and Bofur too? And Bombur is – something else, in-between, they said.”

“Er… yes,” says Bilbo, scratching her head. Well, the Ur clan had already given their permission to tell Fili and Kili, even when they had not known it was Fili and Kili. So they probably won’t mind Ori knowing as well.

“Oh, I can’t wait to tell Nori and Dori, they’ll be so pleased,” says Ori, clasping her hands together and practically fizzing over with joy.

Bilbo almost chokes. “You mustn’t tell anyone about us, not even your brothers, understand?” says the hobbit, crossing her arms over her chest. “It’s very important. We could all get into a lot of trouble.”

Ori scrunches up her face. “But – they’re like us, too! Dori is an _amagurinh_ , but she’s pretending to be an _agânûn_ , and Nori’s _zundushul_ but he’s pretending to be an _agânûn_ as well.”

“Oh, Ori, I’m not sure you should have told me that without their permission,” says Bilbo worriedly, putting her hand over her mouth. _Zundushul_ is a word that she recognises from her conversations with Bombur. It means a person who has any one of a number of different conditions that result in non-binary bodies. It means that Nori could not have been a beginning-man, because his body was already different from the beginning.

Ori stamps her foot. “I don’t see why not,” she says mulishly. “I know about you, and now you know about us too. Fair’s fair.”

“I don’t think your siblings will see it that way,” says Bilbo unhappily.

And indeed they do not. Nori is furious that Ori had outed him without his consent, and Dori is not much better; the white-haired dwarf refuses to speak to or even look at Bilbo for the whole of the next day. The hobbit tries to think of a way to reassure them, but there isn’t really anything she can do. The essential problem is that Nori and Dori don’t trust her, and with good reason – they barely know her.

After a thorough scolding from Dori, Ori is at least a little contrite, and she apologises to all of them in turn. Dori softens up eventually, but Nori is still very angry, and takes to shooting poisonous glances at Bilbo from across the camp.

They don’t really get time to resolve any of it before they run into the stone giants, and then they have much more pressing things to think about. Bilbo is quite certain, hanging off the rock, that she is about to die. Ori grabs for her hands but only ends up knocking her further down the cliffside – and then suddenly Thorin is there, hauling her up, and almost falling to his own death.

Bilbo tries to thank him, but the dwarven king only glares at her and then pointedly turns away.

The sandy cave provides at least a brief moment of respite. Bofur is on first watch, so Bilbo stays up with her, and they sit side by side, clasping hands, looking out into the darkness. The peaceful moment doesn’t last long. Bofur notices Bilbo’s sword glowing, and then Thorin leaps up and starts shouting, and the ground is falling away beneath them.

When the goblins take them, Nori tries to grab onto Bilbo’s hand, but they get separated in the crowd; and then suddenly the dwarves are gone, and Bilbo is falling down into the deep, down to Gollum and endless darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: characters are outed without their consent.
> 
> Khuzdul:  
>  _amugurul_ – bear-like, i.e. trans. (See previous chapter for my headcanon regarding etymology.)  
>  _amagurinh_ – bear-lady, i.e. trans woman.   
> _agânînh_ – beginning-ladies, i.e. cis women.  
>  _agâninh_ \- beginning-lady, i.e. cis woman.  
>  _agânûn_ – beginning-man, i.e. cis man.  
>  _zundushul_ – intersex, lit. birdlike. I imagine this word would have come about because of gynandromorphy observed in birds with sexually dimorphic colouring. 
> 
> For clarity’s sake: Dori is a trans woman pretending to be a cis man. Nori is an intersex person with ambiguous genitalia (for the sake of argument, let’s say he has 5-alpha-reductase deficiency, since it’s the condition I’m most familiar with) who identifies as a man already, but is passing as a cis man for his own safety.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Khuzdul translations at the end of the chapter.

The next few hours seem to pass by in a blurry haze of sickening fear and rushing adrenaline. Running from the wargs, throwing blazing pinecones, and fighting the orcs all seem to happen on automatic. Bilbo doesn’t even think about it when she rushes down the burning trunk of the fir tree after Thorin, and when the eagles come to take them away she has the distinct impression that everything since the cave was just an unholy nightmare.

It wasn’t a nightmare. They reach the Carrock and Thorin finally has a word of praise for the hobbit; he pulls her into a crushing hug, and all she can do is flail wildly for a moment before settling into it. Bofur doesn’t wait for Thorin to release the hobbit before she hugs her as well; in fact all three of the Ur dwarves throw themselves at Bilbo as soon as they get the chance, leaving Thorin rather squished in the middle.

Gandalf directs them to the house of an old friend of his, a huge, burly skinchanger named Beorn. Apparently Beorn sometimes turns into a gigantic bear, which isn’t difficult to believe considering that he almost looks like one already. His teeth are very white and very sharp, and his eyes are a warm brown, and his skin is the brown-black colour of a bear’s fur. He seems friendly enough, though he calls Bilbo “little bunny” and practically tries to force-feed her buttered bread and honeycomb.

If the encounter with Azog felt like a nightmare, staying at Beorn’s house feels like a dream. Bilbo can hardly believe it’s real – the gigantic bees, and the flowers, and the eerily intelligent hunting dogs. The soft beds, and the sweet mead. The chance to finally relax without having to watch her back for knives.

Bilbo and Bofur leap at the chance to finally spend time alone together. They share a bedroom, and Bilbo wakes up in the morning with her nose pressed into Bofur’s chest hair, and their bodies entwined together like woven ribbon. They go for walks around Beorn’s gardens together, and Bilbo teaches Bofur all about the hobbitish flower meanings, and Bofur teaches Bilbo how to tie a decent braid. Apparently there are strict courting procedures that dwarves are supposed to follow, but Bofur isn’t much for procedure, and her siblings aren’t really willing to police it. Mostly she and Bilbo just make things up as they go along, and it seems to be working well enough so far.

Rather unexpectedly, Bilbo finds herself spending time with other members of the Company too. Nori seems to have forgiven her for inadvertently learning his secret, and Dori takes to fussing around her as much as she fusses around Ori, pouring cups of tea and slinging knitted scarves around Bilbo’s neck. The more time she spends with Ori, the more time she spends with Dwalin too; from the lingering looks they give each other, she’s starting to have an inkling as to why Ori dropped everything to come on the quest. And where Ori goes, Nori and Dori inevitably follow.

It’s Thorin that’s the most unexpected of them all. The Thorin of today is not at all like the Thorin of a week ago. He is much freer with his smiles, and he lets out strings of colourful curses when Oin tends to his wounds. He has _emotions_ , which – apart from contempt, disbelief, and slowly smouldering anger – is not something that Bilbo has seen in him before.

Thorin begins to seek her out, and asks her _questions_ , about what life is like in the Shire, and about her family, and about her travels. Bilbo is beginning to get very perturbed, and then after a few days she discovers a rolled-up parchment near Thorin’s bedroll, in Kili’s distinctive handwriting, with all of the questions written down upon it. Thorin’s about halfway through. The list is titled “How to Socialise With Hobbits: A Guide for the Incapable.”

Bilbo is more relieved than annoyed at the discovery. She’d been beginning to worry that Thorin’s injuries had somehow given him a complete personality transplant.

At one point Thorin asks to have a closer look at her swords, and she hands them over without a word. He gives the elven blade a perfunctory glance, and then snorts and puts it aside. The dwarfish blade, Biter, holds his interest for longer. He turns it over in his hands for a while, brow furrowed, and then he peers under the hilt for the maker’s mark, and his eyebrows shoot up his forehead.

“Where did you get this?” he demands, clutching the hilt with white-knuckled fingers.

“My mother bought it for me in Bree, when I was only a faunt,” says Bilbo, blinking slowly at him.

“Bree,” says Thorin softly. “Of course.” His white-knuckled grip relaxes, and he strokes his fingers over the blade as if greeting an old friend. “This is no ordinary dwarfish sword. I forged it myself, while wandering through the cities of humans. Work was scarce, but… I remember this piece.”

“Oh,” says Bilbo, wide-eyed. She’d known Thorin was old, but it’s somehow different to have the evidence staring her in the face like this.

“Have you named it?”

“Biter,” she says.

Thorin snorts. Before Bilbo has time to get properly offended, he says, “It seems we have a matching set. _Biter_ was the name that the goblins gave to Orcrist.”

“Huh.” She chews that over for a moment.

It seems Thorin has decided their conversation is over, because he gets up without a word and wanders off in the direction of the dining hall. Kings, honestly. Bilbo slides her swords back into their sheaths, and turns towards the gardens. It’s a beautiful day, and she’s determined to enjoy the peace and sunlight while they’re staying here.

The peace and sunlight is rudely interrupted when Bilbo stumbles across Oin and Balin, stark naked in a clearing, enthusiastically copulating. There is a distinct lack of… socks.

By this point, Bilbo isn’t even surprised.

She claps a hand over her eyes and sneaks away before they even notice her presence, thanking Eru for her silent hobbit footsteps. Ten of them now, and only Gloin, Dwalin, and Thorin left. This is getting ridiculous.

She doesn’t say a word to the others about her latest discovery, but she has to wonder how much Balin and Oin know. Oin is a healer – surely that territory includes intimate knowledge of bodies and identities. And Balin, well, Balin is old and canny, and has served as the advisor to kings for more than a hundred years. Maybe one of them was the dwarf in the closet. Maybe Bilbo’s not the only one to discover something and keep it secret.

Trying desperately to distract herself from thoughts of wrinkly dwarf sex, Bilbo ends up chatting with Ori in a secluded corner. Ori shows her the sketches that she’s been working on, and that she’d somehow managed to salvage from Goblin Town even after all their things were taken from them. There are a great deal of sketches of Dwalin.

“He’s just so _strong_ ,” sighs Ori, clutching her quill. “And… and brave. And he’s nice, too, so many warriors are just stoic and awful but Dwalin always makes an effort to give you a smile.”

“I think that’s just you,” says Bilbo frankly.

“Pff,” says Ori, flapping her hands and almost splattering them both with ink. “He’s not… I don’t have any illusions, Bilbo, someone like Dwalin would never be interested in someone like me. I just… I couldn’t bear to see him go on this quest alone. I kept thinking that I’d just be stuck back in Ered Luin, and he’d just go away and disappear and I’d never hear what had become of him. At least if I’m here, I can _be_ here.”

Bilbo’s sure that made more sense in Ori’s head.

The young dwarf isn’t done. “There are songs, you know,” she says. “Love ballads. About women following their lovers off to war. They’re romantic.”

“Ori,” says Bilbo gently, “have you thought of actually talking to Dwalin about your feelings?”

“I couldn’t, I couldn’t,” says Ori, shaking her head. “He wouldn’t think it was romantic – he’d be furious. You know what he’s like. Anyway, in the ballads usually one or both of them dies heroically, and it’s all terribly lovely and sad. I don’t want lovely and sad. I want ordinary and happy.”

 _So why did you come_ , Bilbo thinks, but she is kind enough not to say it. Instead she stands up, stretches out a hand, and says, “Come on, Ori. Let’s go see if Bombur’s done with the treacle cake.”

Bombur’s treacle cake, Bilbo muses, is _worth_ being killed by a dragon for.

They stay at Beorn’s for a week or two, recovering, before Thorin starts getting antsy. Durin’s Day is fast approaching, he says. Where the fuck is the wizard going now, he says. Fuck it, let’s brave Mirkwood on our own, he says.

Possibly that wasn’t his best idea. Bilbo fancies she’s rather getting used to Thorin’s terrible plans, now.

Mirkwood seems to suck the life out of all of them. The trees are dim and gloomy, and here and there strange glowing eyes will peer out from the darkness. They always feel like they are being watched. Sometimes they hear strange, muffled noises in the darkness; howls, or clicking, or dying screams.

Their food is running out fast, and even with Bilbo’s shipbiscuits shared between them, there’s not enough to keep them going. It’s all Bilbo can do to keep trudging along the path, holding tight to Bofur’s hand, trying not to let the darkness suck her under. She and Bofur don’t even have the energy to smile at each other anymore.

Eventually the eerie fog gets so thick that they can barely see each other, and they are forced to knot handholds into a rope and string it out between them. When they sleep, they do so with the rope knotted around them in a circle, with the younger dwarves in the centre and the older dwarves in a ring around them. Thorin spreads himself out like a starfish, trying to touch as many members of the Company as possible, as if he can protect them that way.

Bilbo’s monthlies come again while they are ensconced in the gloom of the forest, and she barely has the energy to hide it from her friends. At least half of them already know her secret, and are willing to cover for her. She feels as if her lifeblood is running out of her, draining her of everything that is good and bright.

When the spiders come, Bilbo is almost glad, because at least it’s a change from the endless, dull, awful feeling in the pit of her stomach. She’d felt as if the path through the forest would never end. Now that they have strayed from the path, at least she can do something other than slog along forever.

She feels terribly guilty for being glad when she finds Bofur all tied up in spider’s webs. Wearing her magic ring in Mirkwood feels all kinds of wrong, but it keeps her alive. Sort of. Bilbo feels as if she’s in the Underworld, unable to touch the mortal realm, with everything grey and wispy around her. The spiders soon learn to be afraid of Bilbo’s swords, and her elvish blade gains a name – Sting.

Covered in webs, and stumbling drunkenly out of the underbrush, Bilbo is almost relieved when the dwarves are captured by Thranduil’s guards. At least this way they won’t get into any more trouble. She follows them invisibly, just to be sure there’s no hanky-panky going on, but she figures there’s not much to worry about. They’re elves, after all. Elves are a friendly, accommodating people, always willing to entertain guests. Right?

Wrong.

As it turns out, Thorin’s irrational grudge against Thranduil isn’t as irrational as she’d thought it was. The Elvenking takes great pleasure in locking up all of the dwarves in separate cells, with Thorin the most isolated of all of them, unable to even hear his people’s cries and cursing through the echoing chambers of the palace. In revenge for this cruelty, Bilbo steals a whole tray of custard tarts and distributes them among the dwarves. Then she goes back for the jammy biscuits, and hides a pile of them in Thranduil’s bed.

Thranduil is unamused, to say the least.

Using the ring in Thranduil’s palace is not quite so terrible as using the ring while wandering aimlessly through Mirkwood, but it’s still not very pleasant. Sometimes Bilbo hears horrible whispers, strange voices saying the cruellest things, taunting her, and pleading with her, and all she can do is ignore them and hope they go away. The world of the ring feels _unreal_. Bilbo sometimes wonders if she has died without noticing, and is only floating through the world of the living, transformed into a wraith or a ghost.

She can still interact with the world. Ghosts can’t touch the world of the living, therefore Bilbo is not a ghost. Stealing biscuits might make the Elvenking suspicious, but it reminds Bilbo that she is alive, and that is more precious than anything.

She spends a lot of time sitting, invisible, at the door to Bofur’s cell. Bofur doesn’t always know that she’s there. Bilbo doesn’t keep herself hidden out of malice – it is only that whenever Bofur knows that her lover is around, she tries to put on a brave face, and be cheerful, and crack jokes to try to make Bilbo smile, and the effort is exhausting, although she tries to hide it. If Bilbo remains invisible then she can take comfort in Bofur’s presence without putting pressure on either of them to smile or act merry.

Sometimes they hold hands through the bars, and do not speak.

Sometimes they sing together. As a result of Bofur’s efforts, Bilbo now has a fair knowledge of dwarven ballads and love songs, and a positively encyclopaedic knowledge of dirty mining chants. Bofur doesn’t always understand the strange lilting tunes of Shire folksongs, but she likes the drinking songs, and her low voice is well-suited to them.

Bilbo is determined to find some way of rescuing them, but elven prisons are old and sturdy, and she has very little experience with this sort of thing.

“Take care of yourself first,” Bofur often tells her. “Don’t worry yourself to death trying to help us. You need to sleep, and eat. Something will turn up.”

She can’t help but feel like it’s her fault that they were captured, though. Surely there was _something_ she could have done. And now that they are here, and she is still free, it is her responsibility to save them – if only because she is the only person who can.

Bilbo tries to carry messages between the dwarves at least once a day, but the trek between the cells is tiring, since they are arrayed all over the palace. Shorter distances tire her out more easily, now. The ring seems to sap all of her energy.

Fili and Kili are always eager to know how the other is doing, and they send rhyming messages to each other to keep their spirits up. Fili will begin a rhyming couplet with some virtuous phrase about true friendship; and then Kili will finish it with something horribly bawdy, and they will both laugh until their sides are aching. Bilbo doesn’t laugh, but sometimes even she cannot help but smile a little. She can’t laugh in this place. There is no happiness to be found here.

Bombur is always very quiet, but they are painfully glad to see Bilbo whenever she visits them. She always tries to sneak Bombur an extra pie or piece of bread, something filched from the kitchens where nobody will notice its absence. Still, Bombur is worryingly lethargic. The elves are not feeding them enough.

Carrying messages to Bifur is a little more difficult. Bilbo can’t speak to her in _iglishmêk_ when she is invisible; and though Bifur can understand Westron well enough, she has trouble with the language when she is agitated, and these days she is agitated almost all of the time. Bilbo watches the rotations of the guards and tries to find the times when Bifur is left alone, so that she can reveal herself, and they can speak more easily. Bifur doesn’t always have a lot to say, but Bilbo suspects she is comforted merely by being spoken to.

She speaks to Oin in _iglishmêk_ too, since the old healer’s ear trumpet had been destroyed in the skirmish with the goblins. They speak about healing, and herbs, and flowers, but it is difficult for Bilbo to contribute anything useful when she doesn’t know the _iglishmêk_ phrases for the herbs she knew back in the Shire.

Dori worries endlessly about her siblings, and Nori, as much as he tries to hide it, is not much better. Surprisingly it is Ori who is the calmest, out of the three of them. The little scribe is a constant source of hope and optimism, and she is relentlessly cheerful whenever Bilbo visits.

“I don’t understand how you can be happy,” Bilbo says to her, leaning against the bars. “Not when everything’s gone wrong.”

Ori only shrugs. “It’s not so bad,” she says. “We have food, and water, and shelter. There aren’t any orcs chasing us. At least we’re all together, even if we’re apart.”

Ori has something of a talent for saying things that make complete sense while simultaneously making absolutely no sense at all.

During their stay at Beorn’s, Bilbo had started to become closer to some of the dwarves, but it is here in the bowels of the Elvenking’s palace where those friendships are properly cemented. The dwarves are so lonely that whenever she visits them they are always happy to converse with her, even about silly things. Dwalin tells her about his days in the King’s Guard, chasing Nori about the markets. Gloin tells her about his wife and young son Gimli, both of whom had apparently been terribly indignant about not being allowed on the quest with them.

Balin tells her about the histories and epic sagas of the dwarves, old stories that are not meant to be shared with outsiders. Bilbo is no longer an outsider, Balin tells her. Bilbo is one of the Company.

It is Balin that she likes speaking to the most, after Bofur. Balin does not try to cheer her up, or make her speak, or ask question after question about how the others are doing. The old dwarf only tries to distract her, and it usually works. There is a comfortable rhythm between the two of them, and Bilbo appreciates the chance to relax, to stop thinking constantly about how to find a way out. Instead she can lose herself in stories, and for a short time the burden on her shoulders eases.

During the second week of their involuntary stay in Thranduil’s palace, Balin seems uncomfortable, pacing around the cramped little cell. For the first time since they were locked up here, the dwarf does not seem in the mood for telling stories, and eventually Balin turns to Bilbo and asks her a question.

“Can you keep a secret, laddie?”

Bilbo almost laughs. “Of course,” she says. “There are many secrets under my belt.” The double meaning only hits her after she has said it. She begins to think that Bofur is rubbing off on her.

Balin sighs. “There is – something that I need. Do you know where the elves are keeping our packs?”

Bilbo nods. “I found them last week,” she says. “I haven’t touched them, though. I didn’t want to give the game away.” She has a feeling she knows what this is about.

“Good,” says Balin absently. “Good, good. I – there is a little wooden box in my pack, in the inside pocket. I would be very grateful if you could bring it to me.”

“Of course – but it might take a while,” says the hobbit. “The room is almost always guarded.”

Balin seems to sag a little. “It is rather urgent.”

Bilbo looks steadfastly at the ceiling. “I might have something to help you in the meantime,” she says, in a rather high voice. “Would – would cloth pads be of any use?”

There is a choking noise inside the cell, and Bilbo abandons her scrutiny of the ceiling to make sure that Balin is not having a heart attack. It’s all right – the dwarf is only surprised. “You _know_?”

“I know a lot of things,” says Bilbo, shifting awkwardly. “I know that, from what I have seen, dwarves are all very brave and very loyal. I know that – that tradition can be difficult to buck, but that sometimes it is all the braver to flout tradition rather than abide by it. And I know some… some Khuzdul that might be applicable in this situation. I am an _agâninh_ myself. If it helps.”

“I am not an _agâninh_ ,” says Balin. “I am an _amagurûn_.”

“Oh,” says Bilbo, blinking a little. She thinks of Arwen. “But you have not… you have not changed your body?”

Balin snorts. “I was born in my body,” he says. “I like it well enough. The body is not everything.”

“Of course not,” says Bilbo, but then she thinks of something else. “Balin – this is probably horribly intrusive – but how often do dwarves have their cycles? It is only that… there are others, in our Company, who might have a similar problem to yours, and I would not like them to suffer in silence.”

“Only every three months,” says Balin. “There are herbs that can suppress it, as well, but not everyone can take them. I have never been able to, more’s the pity. Cramps. Horrible business.”

“Right,” says Bilbo, and fishes her spare cloth pad out of her pack, averting her eyes to pass it through the bars. Balin takes it with a quiet word of thanks.

She doesn’t get the chance to access the Company’s packs until that evening, but when she does it is but a moment’s work to find Balin’s pack and fish out the wooden box. The device within it is intriguing – a little rubbery bell-shaped cup, with holes perforating the sides. The rim seems designed to provide suction, so the holes must be for releasing the suction in order to remove the cup. It is an ingenious little thing, and Balin seems very grateful to have it returned to him.

After that the old dwarf returns to his earlier mild temper, and his stories resume. He has a real gift for weaving grand tales, and when he speaks Bilbo finally feels that there is something more than the grey world she finds herself stranded in, something more than the creeping despair that haunts her every waking moment. Balin’s stories make her heart beat again, and her blood move through her veins.

The best stories are the ones about Thorin, because Balin speaks with such impossible affection in his voice.

 _Actually_ speaking to Thorin, though… that is not quite so pleasant.

Bilbo’s visits to Thorin are always rough, because Thorin is always so _angry_. The king’s voice is hoarse from shouting at his guards, and his eyes are red-rimmed from refusing to sleep. He does not trust the elves not to slit his throat, if he sleeps in their presence. He attacks his guards whenever they come to feed him, punching and kicking, pulling hidden weapons out of strange places, and generally making as much of a nuisance of himself as is possible Eventually, losing patience, the guards strip Thorin down to his smallclothes and shackle him to the wall.

Still they have not broken his spirit: Thorin strips ribbons out of his smallclothes, and uses them to attempt to strangle the guard watching him.

After that they do not allow him to wear anything at all.

When Bilbo visits him, Thorin is hunched up against the wall with the chains wrapped around and around his body. Most of him is in shadow, but his faced is bathed in moonlight from the open window – too small and too high to climb out of.

Sometimes he speaks. Sometimes he does not. Always he wishes to know of Fili and Kili, and of the rest of their Company. He worries more than Dori, but he is subtler about it.

Bilbo’s gaze lingers on the scars on his chest, and she does not say a word. Thorin seems grateful for it.

He has been through a lot.

When Bilbo finally discovers the hatch that leads to the river, through which the elves exchange barrels of goods with the humans of Laketown, they are all desperate enough to try practically anything. She drugs the guards and filches the keys, and lets the dwarves out one by one, sealing them in barrels and pushing them out to freedom.

She does not have a barrel of her own. She shuts her eyes, and jumps out after them, flailing with shock when she hits the freezing waters of the river.

For the first time in weeks she is not wearing the ring.

She feels like she can finally breathe again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Khuzdul:  
>  _amagurûn_ – bear-man, i.e. trans man.  
>  _agâninh_ – beginning-lady, i.e. cis woman.  
>  _Iglishmêk_ – dwarven sign language.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings and Khuzdul translations at the end of the chapter.

The humans of Laketown are welcoming enough, though they are suspicious at first. The oldest among them have long memories, and they are pleased to see Thorin Oakenshield return to the mountain at last. Oin is not the only one who had been paying attention to the portents. The signs say that it is time. The townspeople lead them to the local inn, and set them up with food and drink.

The tavern food could have been dirt and dry ashes and Bilbo still would have gobbled it up happily. She’s been living on stray pickings from elven kitchens for far too long, and she feels deflated, like a balloon with all the air let out of it. The rest of the Company, and Bombur in particular, seem to feel similarly, if the way they practically inhale their meals is any indication.

After they have eaten, the innkeeper rolls out several huge barrels of ale, declaring that they are on the house for the Company of the King Under the Mountain. Bilbo is reluctant to accept – in her world you do not get something for nothing, and she has no wish to be indebted to the humans that live here – but the dwarves do not share her reservations, and proceed to get roaring drunk.

As usual, Bofur’s cuddliness is directly proportional to the amount of ale she has consumed. She sidles up next to Bilbo and props her chin up on the hobbit’s shoulder, occasionally pressing kisses to the soft skin beneath Bilbo’s jaw. Her hands creep under the table before long, tracing little circles on Bilbo’s hipbone, and then moving over her thigh. Bofur is not usually so demonstrative in public, but Bilbo can’t say that she minds – they’ve spoken about this before, careful not to overstep each other’s boundaries, and they have a good grasp of what they are both comfortable with.

“I’m glad,” says Bofur sleepily, after a while.

“Of what?” asks Bilbo, expecting something drunken and incoherent.

Bofur sighs. “That you’re okay,” she says. “That we’re all intact, and out of the dungeons. I was afraid for you. I kept thinking that you’d be captured along with us, or that you’d get lost in some hidden part of the palace and never find your way out again.”

“Well,” says Bilbo, touched and not quite sure what to say. Bofur is not usually so open with her fears – usually she tries to put a brave face on things, convinced that she will only spread her unhappiness if she dares to share it with another. “I’m glad that you’re okay, too. But we’re not quite finished with this quest yet.”

Fili and Kili get rowdier as the night progresses, daring each other to complete silly tasks, and laughing raucously when they are caught out by their companions. Nori has started a little betting pool in the corner, while Dori watches on disapprovingly. Ori and Dwalin have sequestered themselves to a corner, and when Bilbo gets a chance to look over she is amused to see that they appear to be reading poetry to one another. Not such an unlikely match, then, after all.

Gloin and Balin are whispering heatedly at the next table. This is not such a rare thing; the dwarves’ tempers run hot, and they have frequent arguments that are quick to smooth over. Something seems different, though. Balin is unusually serious, his amiable face scrunched up in anger, and he keeps looking around as if he is worried that someone will overhear him.

“Here,” says Oin, coming up beside them and apparently oblivious to the quarrel, “what are you chaps talking about?”

Gloin glares at Balin, and says nothing.

“Mister Gloin has some misgivings about what will happen when this quest is over,” says Balin coldly. “I have respectfully suggested that Mister Gloin take those misgivings and shove them up his _hubma._ ”

Gloin’s expression cracks, and he slams his fist against the table, drawing the attention of the others. “And I say that you’re blind to the truth!” he snarls, eyes misty with drink.

“Here, now,” says Oin worriedly, “there’s no need to get angry –”

“There is every need!” cries Gloin, standing up and almost upsetting the table. “Are you really so naïve? Do you really think that we will all take our share of the treasure and go flitting off into the sunset? It will never be so easy!”

“I think that you should shut your mouth,” says Balin, without moving from his seat. “There is a _dragon_ between us and that treasure, my lad. We can worry about the future once we have reached it.”

“It will be too late then,” says Gloin, practically vibrating with anger. The other dwarves are silent now, all staring at him. The few humans in the tavern have either quietly left the room or quietly moved out of the way. “I am not stupid. The elders will never allow us to take our fair shares.”

“Be quiet,” says Balin. “Do not speak of this –”

“The contracts are worthless. We are not legally entitled to our spoils,” says Gloin bitterly. “We are none of us beginning-men – none of us _agânûnh_.”

In the silence, someone drops a tankard of ale, and it clatters unhappily on the floor.

“Well – except for Thorin and Dwalin, of course,” says Gloin. He looks a little uncomfortable now, and perhaps a little more sober. “And I’m not sure about Bilbo, it’s hard to tell with hobbits. But – I’m right, aren’t I? You all know I’m right.”

The dwarves seem to have collectively found something very interesting on the ceiling, and they are inspecting it determinedly.

Dwalin coughs. “If it’s any help,” he says, clutching Ori’s hand, “I am not an _agânûn_ either.”

“Nor I,” says Bilbo quickly, before she loses her nerve. The others turn to look at her, and she flushes hotly and drops her gaze. Dwalin, too? She’d thought that he wouldn’t hide anything from his king, but apparently she was wrong.

Thorin is stone-faced and silent.

“This is not the time to speak of such things,” says Balin, giving Bilbo a quelling look. He tips his head meaningfully towards the bar. The human innkeeper starts to whistle loudly, scrubbing at the counter of the bar, as if to prove that he is not listening.

“What better time is there?” murmurs Gloin resentfully. “We are about to face a fire-breathing monstrosity – there will be no time for talking then. If we survive, we will have to protect and rebuild the mountain, and the elders will travel from the Iron Hills and the Grey Mountains the moment they hear that the wyrm is gone.”

“Does the gold really matter so much?” pipes up Ori softly. “Regaining our home – isn’t that grand enough on its own?”

“Hrmph,” says Gloin. He doesn’t seem to have a good answer to that.

Surprisingly it is Dwalin that speaks up. “Home doesn’t count for much when you’re too poor to eat,” he points out, curling a protective arm around Ori. “We aren’t only in this for the gold – but it’s a bloody good incentive.”

“If the elders learn of this – we’re fucked,” says Nori. “They’ll run us out of the mountain.”

Balin lets out a noise of protest, and then suddenly all the dwarves are talking at once, yelling over each other and climbing up onto the tables. In all the confusion nobody notices when Thorin stands and slips out of the room.

Bilbo follows him.

She finds him in the alleyway outside the inn, leaning against the brick wall. There is a glimmer of gold around his neck, some sort of locket, which he tucks away hastily as Bilbo approaches.

“What do you want, halfling?” he asks, not unkindly. The moonlight casts strange shadows across his face, throwing his eyes and beard into sharp relief, and disguising the rest.

Bilbo swallows. “I suppose – I want to make sure you’re not going to send us all home.”

Thorin snorts. “Because of this? Not likely. You’ve all proven yourselves. If I was going to send any of you home I would have done it months ago.”

Months ago?

Bilbo’s heart is pounding so loudly that she’s sure Thorin can hear it. “You knew?”

“Course I knew.” He jerks his head back towards the inn. “I grew up with half of that lot. The rest of them, well, let’s just say I’m very observant. And _you_ , halfling – you I pegged from the moment I met you. Something in your eyes. Like you’re watching yourself to see how good you are, and watching everyone else to see if they notice.”

For a moment Bilbo has no words, and then a horrible thought strikes her. “Thorin… Do I have a pair of socks that belongs to you?”

He grins. “You do indeed. No need for them now – suppose I’ll have them back, then. Well-washed, please.”

Bilbo splutters and fumbles for her belt. “You’ll have them back right now!”

He holds up a hand. His eyes are dancing. “Well-washed. I insist.”

She drops her hands to her sides. Her face feels very hot. “Have you just been laughing at us, this whole time? Watching us pretend to be something we’re not?”

“Oh, Bilbo, no,” Thorin says softly. “You must understand, I am the King. There are laws that I must uphold, whether I agree with them or not. If I did not know, then those laws could not be enforced, do you see?”

“Not really,” she grumbles, but she doesn’t make any further protest.

“This changes nothing,” he says lowly. “I heard nothing in there. That is how it must be.”

Bilbo disagrees, but in the end it comes to nothing anyway. By the time they return to the inn, several of the dwarves have already begun to re-do their hair, braiding it in the way of dwarven women. Thorin’s eyebrows shoot together when he notices, but he doesn’t say anything. He seems to have _some_ tact, at least.

Fili and Kili are seated in the corner, halfway through the process of braiding each other’s hair, and they dart terrified glances at Thorin when he walks towards them. It is difficult to say who is the more shocked when all Thorin does is sit down beside them, and take the strands of Kili’s hair out of Fili’s hands.

“You’re doing it wrong,” says the king gruffly. “Watch.”

Fili’s eyes are wide and bright, fixed on her uncle’s hands, unblinking, as if she thinks that the whole scene will disappear if she looks away even for a moment. Kili is frozen in place, and her back is very taut. Thorin doesn’t do anything else unexpected, though; he just weaves Kili’s hair into the proper configurations, gently and firmly, and eventually Kili begins to relax.

“We thought you’d be angry,” whispers Fili.

“No, my dears,” says Thorin heavily. He pauses in his task, and brings Fili’s face closer to his own, leaning his forehead against hers. “Never angry.”

Kili lets out a broken sob, and then she whirls around and throws her arms around her sister and her uncle. Her half-finished braid falls apart, but none of them are paying it any attention; they are too busy clutching each other close and murmuring reassurances into each other’s ears.

Bilbo feels a little uncomfortable, watching them, as if she is intruding on something very private. She drags her gaze away, and instead turns her attention to Bofur and her family. Bofur’s hair has already been expertly rebraided by Bifur, whose hands are very nimble from years of whittling intricate toys. Bifur is partway through rebraiding her own hair, but she keeps mixing it up and getting the knots backwards, and then dropping the whole thing in disgust. Bofur keeps offering to help, but she is distracted by her consultations with Bombur, who is apparently trying to figure out a hairstyle that is a mixture of masculine and feminine traits. Bombur seems excited and terrified in equal measure, and they keep looking around them as if they expect everything to suddenly fall to pieces.

Bilbo doesn’t know much about braids, but she sits down beside Bofur anyway, cuddling into her lover’s side. Bofur wraps an arm around Bilbo’s shoulders, and kisses her cheek, and continues with her conversation 

Sitting at the table beside them, Ori is sitting in Dwalin’s lap, chattering happily about her scribing and about the scholars of Laketown that she had met earlier that evening. Dwalin is attempting to braid Ori’s hair, but is not having much luck, since Ori keeps squirming around and pulling the braids out of place. Dwalin, too, seems distracted; he keeps glancing over to Bombur, and then glancing away quickly so as not to be accused of eavesdropping.

Bofur notices, though. Bofur has always been observant.

“Dwalin, what do you think?” she asks, twisting around in her seat so that she can look the older dwarf in the eye. “Half-knot or fishtail? Bombur’s hair is long enough for pretty much anything – though I’m not sure what we can do with their beard…”

Dwalin’s eyes are wide, and he glances uncertainly between Bombur and Bofur. Bombur smiles at him in invitation.

“You… you could try a miner’s knot with a three-quarter-twist,” offers Dwalin hesitantly. “For the beard, I mean.”

“Ooh, yes, I hadn’t thought of that,” says Bofur excitedly. “Bombur?”

Bombur nods. “I like that.”

Dwalin looks impossibly pleased with himself. “And you could try a skeleton braid around your ear, if you like,” he says, emboldened. “To offset the fishtail.”

“Ye-es,” says Bofur, narrowing her eyes. She looks more curious than excited, now. “Thought this through, have you?”

Dwalin blushes, and Ori lays a hand on his arm. “I’m like Bombur,” he says. “Not… not one way or the other.”

“I see,” says Bofur, perfectly calmly. “Pronouns?”

“Neutral-familiar, in Khuzdul,” Dwalin says. “In Westron… it depends on my mood. Some days I feel... more one way, and some days I feel... more the other. Masculine pronouns are fine for now.”

“All right,” says Bofur, and reaches over to clap Dwalin on the shoulder. “Do let us know if that changes.”

“I will,” mumbles Dwalin. His expression looks a little like Bombur’s did earlier – pleased and terrified.

Bombur _now_ looks as if the sun has risen over their face; they are beaming, eyes crinkled up, happier than Bilbo has ever seen them before. “I thought I was the only one,” Bombur says, pressing their hands over their mouth. “I thought there weren’t any others, I thought I was alone.”

“Well, you’re not alone,” says Dwalin gruffly. “And I’ve met a few more, over in the Grey Mountains. Not exactly the same, o’course. But similar enough.”

“Is there a name for it?” asks Bombur. “For us?”

Dwalin shrugs. “There are loads of names,” he says. “Not all of them are very nice, though. We’ll think up some better ones.”

Bilbo stares down at the table. It appears that she had left one very personal conversation only to enter another. Still – none of the dwarves seem to object to her presence, and none of them are particularly embarrassed. In fact they all seem filled with a new energy, a new hope. Thorin’s reaction (or _lack_ of reaction) seems to have bolstered their spirits.

“ _Oh_ ,” says Ori, looking across the room. She stands up quickly, almost knocking over her tankard of ale in her haste to leave. Bilbo is at a loss to think what might have disturbed her so, until she looks over and sees that Dori is crying quietly into her knitting, with Nori looking rather panicked beside her.

Dori’s hair, usually done up so meticulously around the crown of her head, is loose around her shoulders, and Dori’s hands are shaking too hard to do it up again. In a flash Ori is beside her, murmuring soothing words, taking the knitting out of Dori’s tight grasp before she damages it, and wrapping her arms around her sister’s shoulders.

Dori’s tears dry up eventually, and then Ori and Nori both set about to tying up her hair for her. Ori has deft hands by virtue of being a scribe, and Nori has deft hands by virtue of being a thief, and soon enough Dori’s hair is back to looking perfectly tidy – and perfectly feminine, too. (Though Bilbo is still hard-pressed to really see the difference.)

“Poor lass,” says Bofur softly. “She gave up a lot, for those two.”

That is rather an understatement, from what little Bilbo knows of Dori’s history, and from what Bofur has told her of dwarven society. Dori is an _amagurinh_ , a woman who was wrongly accorded the designation of a man. _Amagurînh_ are not allowed to inherit property. Nor are they allowed to take guardianship of younger clan members. Dori was the eldest of her siblings, and when her mother and step-father died Nori was still not quite at the age of majority, and Ori was little more than a child. Dori had embraced her wrongful designation so that she could remain the patriarch of their family, but Bilbo knows that she has bitterly missed feminine things. She has not been able to wear the braids of a woman for more than a century.

Bofur knocks back the last of her ale and then stands up, stretching her arms over her head. “Time for me to hit the sack,” she says, and then she turns to Bilbo. Her eyes are sparkling. “Care to join me?”

Bilbo rockets out of her seat as if her arse is on fire. “Yes,” she says, probably a bit too eagerly. “Yes, I’d really like to… sleep. I’m knackered.” She fakes a yawn.

Dwalin rolls his eyes. “Go on, then,” he says. “You two aren’t fooling anyone, you know. Just try to keep the noise down. Some of us actually want to sleep tonight!”

Bilbo flushes hotly, but Bofur cackles in glee and grabs at her arm, pulling her out of the bar and up the stairs to their private rooms.

They’re lucky, really. Relationships between men are quite commonplace in dwarven society, given the numbers, but relationships between women are much less common and much less acceptable. Never mind that many of those who are not beginning-men are still perfectly capable of having children, via their partner or via donor, and thus fulfilling their ‘duty’; the stigma is still there. Still – there is a remarkable lack of judgement from the other members of their Company. All of them are outsiders of a sort, and they know what it’s like.

The Company does not linger in Laketown for more than a few days. As Thorin is quick to remind them, Durin’s Day is in less than a week, and they still need to figure out where the hidden door is. Something about a grey stone and a knocking thrush, or some such nonsense.

Now that they are finally approaching the dragon, Bilbo had expected the dwarves to be argumentative, scared, or snappish. In fact they seem braver and closer than ever. They all know each other’s secrets, now, and they will defend each other to the death.

But hopefully it will not come to that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: characters are outed without their consent.
> 
> Khuzdul:  
>  _hubma_ – bottom  
>  _agânûnh_ – beginning-men, i.e. cis men.  
>  _agânûn_ – beginning-man, i.e. cis man.  
>  _amagurinh_ – bear-lady, i.e. trans woman.  
>  _amagurînh_ – bear-ladies, i.e. trans women.


End file.
